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CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE
GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • nOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Lijiitsd

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

L Calif ornian Trails, Intimate
Guide to the Old Missions

The Story of the California Missions

By
TROWBRIDGE HALL

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920

All Rights Reserved

COPTRIGHT, 1920,

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1920.

DEDICATED TO

O. T.

SOMETIME THOUGHTLESS WANDERER

ALL TIMES BELOVED 'COMRADE

A FOREWORD

Bancroft & Co. "milled" tome after tome upon California
and the Pacific Coast. Hittel, the historian, followed with seven
or eight royal octavos, and the learned Father Zephyrin Engelhardt
compiled from mission records five thick pithy volumes. These
three practically exhaust all original sources. To go behind them
would be a sheer waste of time and so, almost all who follow have
dug with unblushing freedom in their treasure piles.

The writer of this book is no exception to the rule. He freely
acknowledges deep indebtedness to these three historians; and also
to Messrs. James, Saunders and Chase, as well as to many lesser
lights who "loaned" tid-bits from odds and ends of book and
pamphlet. He hopes to have brought to the surface such historic
facts, chit-chat and fable as will be of interest even to the casual
reader and traveler.

Appreciation is also due the artist-photographers, Messrs.
C. C. Pierce, Taylor, Putnam and Valentine, whose pictures appear
in the book. To them and others — all thanks.

Dated June 1, 1920, Pasadena, California.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

The Introduction and An Account of The First Mission
Foundation — San Diego de Alcala 3

CHAPTER n

The Journey From San Diego, With a Fiesta at San Luis
Rey and The Record of Her Asistencia — Pala 14

CHAPTER HI

The Thirty-Five Mile Jaunt From San Luis Rey and
The Story of The Tragedy at San Juan Capistrano. 29

CHAPTER IV

On to San Gabriel ; Her History, Together With a Legend
OF Her Bells 38

CHAPTER V

The Roadway to San Fernando, With a Sketch of Her

Rise and Fall . . 49

CHAPTER VI

To San Buenaventura and The Strange Tale of The
Four Cats 61

CHAPTER VII

The Highway Called RinconandThe Beautiful Gardens

OF Santa Barbara 73

CHAPTER VIII

PAGE

Telling of The Journey to Santa Ines and What One

Finds There 85

CHAPTER IX

A Detour to Purisima and The Fable of The Miraculous

House 99

CHAPTER X

Back to El Camino Real and What San Luis Obispo Has
To Tell of Her Romantic Past 110

CHAPTER XI

About The One-Time Dangerous Roads and The Myth
of San Miguel 121

CHAPTER XII

The Country Beyond San Miguel and The Chronicle of
Old Spanish Life in America — San Antonio de Padua 133

CHAPTER XIII

More Dangerous Road and a Suggestion ofThe Solitude
OF Soledad, With The Fiction of The Pearls of Loretto 143

CHAPTER XIV

To Monterey — In Death, As In Life, The Home of The

Sainted Father Junipero Serra 154

CHAPTER XV

Another Excursion Off The Royal Highway Into The
Land Where Santa Cruz Once Stood, With The Fable
OF The Mission Bells 168

CHAPTER XVI

Back Again to The Royal Highway and The Interesting

Story of San Juan Bautista 177

CHAPTER XVII

PAGE

Along The Way TO San Jose and The Mission Santa Clara,
Dedicated to The Poor Clares 192

CHAPTER XVIII

A Little Journey From San Jose to San Jose, With a
Recital of California's Great Romance 203

CHAPTER XIX

The Wonderful Valley of Santa Clara and Dolores,
The Mission of San Francisco 212

CHAPTER XX

Across The Waters of The Bay to The Hospital Mission
OF San Rafael 223

CHAPTER XXI

Through Orchards andVineyardsto Solano — The Mission
and The Home of The Bear-Flag Revolution 232

L'Envoi 243

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Interior of Pala Mission Chapel, Painted in Crude
Indian Colors Frontispiece

facing page

The Mission of San Diego de Alcala As It Is To-day. . . 9

San Diego Missions and Some Nearby Palms IS

San Luis Rey Ruins, After Secularization 24

The Chapel of San Antonio de Pala 27

Early Mass in the Chapel of San Juan Capistrano 30

The Confessional, San Juan Capistrano 32

The Altar of the Original Church of San Juan Capis-
trano 34

The Arches of San Juan Capistrano Mission 36

San Gabriel Mission, Near Los Angeles 44

The Stairway to the Choir, San Gabriel Mission 46

San Fernando Mission, Showing the Giant Palms 51

The Corridor of San Fernando Monastery 54

The Mission of San Buenaventura 63

A Monk Cultivating Land at Santa Barbara Mission.. l^i

The Interior of the Santa Ines Church 97

facing page

The Corridor, La Purisima Mission 104

San Luis Obispo Mission 113

Doorway, Santa Margarita Chapel at San Luis Obispo 122

San Miguel Mission 125

The Interior of San Miguel Mission 128

The Ruins of San Antonio de Padua 140

La Soledad Mission 146

San Carlos Mission at Carmel, Six Miles From Monterey 159

San Carlos Mission In Its Glory 163

Santa Cruz Mission As It Was Before An Earthquake and

Tidal Wave Wrecked It In 1840 170

San Juan Bautista Mission 181

The Interior of San Juan Bautista Mission 183

The Present Santa Clara Church 197

A Sister, Convent of Dominicans, San Jose 208

The Mission of Dolores To-day 215

The Main Altar of Mission Dolores, San Francisco... 217

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE
GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

I

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE
GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

CHAPTER I

THE INTRODUCTION AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST
MISSION FOUNDATION SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA

A WORLD-FAMED ctymologlst says that far back in the
Middle Ages, when on pilgrimages to the Holy Land,
the French Crusaders were continually being asked
where they were going. Their reply was: a la sainte
terre. This colloquially was soon abbreviated into Saint-
terrers, and then, in the course of time, by those to whom
French was a barbaric tongue, to Saunterers. And it
seems as though this term of Sauntering was peculiarly
well fitted to apply to a summer idling along the trails
the heroic and self-sacrificing Franciscans blazed In
California during the late seventeen hundreds, even
though they have now widened into well-paved highways
and a speedy motor 'car replaces the slow-plodding burro
of the earlier time. Always provided, have It understood,
that your traveling companions be Imagination, Sym-
pathy, and Understanding, lest the end of the trail be

3

4 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Disillusionment; for you are wandering in the avenues of
the past through an often discordantly modern setting
and a present-day critical atmosphere sadly out of tune
with old ways.

Europe and Asia, whose abbeys and shrines are in an
almost perfect state of preservation, with a beginning ,
long antedating the attempt to balance the legendary
egg before Ferdinand and Isabella, look with scarcely
concealed amusement at America when antiquity-hunt-
ing in her own country; but if Confucius is to be trusted,
"To-day, some day will be a hundred years ago"; and,
should the fight to preserve the monuments of Cali-
fornia at the same time develop a love of country, the
old missions will be doing a service comparable with
the object for which they were founded.

For two decades or more a small but enthusiastic
band of men and women, united by their reverence for
the past, have been struggling to prevent complete
obliteration of the mission ruins; and, in so far as prac-
ticable, to reconstruct the original roads connecting them.

As a direct outcome of their work, the destroying
hand of Time has been stayed and, here and there,
restorations begun; while every mile of road that once
joined the twenty-one missions has been surveyed and is
now marked by hundreds of emblematic bell posts,
bearing the title El Camlno Real — ^The Royal Road.

But this is the sole barrier to a "contempt with which

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 5

history will one day surely mark the present generation
for permitting an almost criminal negligence."

Our plan of sauntering is to follow this Royal Road,
as much with the eye of memory and imagination as
with the physical eye, for whose unaided interest, there
is often left pitifully little of the old great past to appeal.
V/e shall follow it, as it leads, almost from the borders
of the New Spain whence it came, to its Northern End
above San Francisco, contenting ourselves with what it
brings, of storied ruin, or preserved relic, of memory or
imagination.

Once upon a time any person, rich or poor, could travel
it without expending a single penny. It had no inns nor
hostelries. Only it had the missions, from that of San
Diego in the South to far distant Sonoma. Good Padre
Junipero Serra had dreamed them and before his death in
1784 the dream had been established at nine different
stations. In the next thirty years, but for San Francisco
Solano of 1823, it was to grow to its fullest extent. Below,
follows a list of the foundations:

Mission Founded

San Diego de Alcala 1769

San Carlos Borromeo 1770

San Antonio de Padua 1771

San Gabriel Arcangel 1771

San Luis Obispo 1772

San Francisco de Asis 1776

San Juan Capistrano 1776

6 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD~MISSIONS

Santa Clara 1777

San Buenaventura 1782

Santa Barbara 1786

La Purisima Concepclon 1787

San Cruz 1791

LaSoledad 1791

San Jose 1797

San Juan Bautista . . , , 1797

San Miguel 1797

San Fernando ..,.. = ..•• 1797

San Luis Rey .......... 1798

Santa Ines , . . . . 1804

San Rafael Arcangel 1817

San Francisco Solano 1823

The missions, it must be remembered, purely religious
as conceived by the leader of the movement, had also a
very real secular value. It was largely on this account
that the Spanish government encouraged them. They
were outer defences of the system in that they promoted
docility among the Indians; and also they were the
economic life of the country. Their period was the
pastoral period of Californian history. Many square
leagues of the land were under their governance: herds
of cattle and sheep, harvests of grain, and also, though
to no such great extent, wealth of oil and wine. Their
hides and tallow were the mainstay of the foreign trade
and practically supported the government.

The labor on these great estates was performed by

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 7

Neophyte Indians — won to this service by the persuasive-
ness and zeal of the Padres and the mysteries of the
rehgion which they practiced and taught to the exclusion
of all other knowledge but that of the various manual
activities which they required and superintended.

So it was, no matter when the visitor might arrive,
at any hour of the day or night, Indian servants were
always at command, also a good bed to sleep upon and a
splendid table. It was not unusual for a Spanish host to
leave a small heap of silver, covered with linen cloth, from
which the stranger was supposed to supply his wants.
Horses to ride were ever at his service. It was customary
as the first occupation of the morning to catch a horse
from the most convenient field, saddle and bridle it
ready for instant use and when the traveler tired one
horse he might take another, leaving the first in the road —
anywhere. If nightfall caught him far from shelter it
was the agreeable custom of the day that he might
slaughter an animal from the nearest herd and it was
quite understood that he had entirely met the exigencies
of the case If he courteously hung the hide where the
owner of the beast could find it.

What charming medieval hospitality!

SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA

On July 16th in the year 1769, though nearing the
breakfast hour, not a sign of smoke was traceable at one

8 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
of the many wigwams in the Indian village of Cosoy.
The entire population was out of doors, clustered about
the hill which centered in the town. The "ugly blue-
eyed, nasty white-colored devils" who had come from the
unknown some ninety suns ago were brewing more witch
medicine, and must be watched. But as the "Diggers"
really cared for nothing save how to fill their stomachs,
even the tense excitement which had pulled them out of
doors did not prevent many of the family groups from
browning over red-hot stones their every-day ration of
wild locusts.

The more provident, with meat in their larder, were
busy cutting It into strips and then tying it to long cords
which permitted them, after swallowing and retaining it
for a few moments, to pull out the partly digested mass
and pass it along to the next expectant members of the
family who would keep on repeating this operation until
the delectable morsel was "no more."

The men were entirely naked, unless glistening daubs
of paint and dangling snail shells from ears and nose can
be considered clothing. The women wore two fibre-
aprons, suspended from a girdle around the waist, one at
the back, one at the front, leaving an opening at either
side, presumably the forerunner of the one-time modish
slit skirt. Both sexes wore long locks smeared with
grease and altogether it was a lazy, filthy people "more

IHK MISSION ()!• SAN Dll(,() UK AI.CAI.A As II Is Ii)-1JAY

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 9

beastly than the beasts," who crouched, in expectant
waiting at the base of the hill.

On the heights, except for the guards, was gathered the
entire white colony, putting the final touches to rude
earthern works surrounding a brushwood structure, a
nearby cross and several hanging bells. Priests, with
shaven crowns, wearing a loose brown robe, tied at the
waist by a long tasseled girdle; soldiers In leather jackets
made from tanned deer skin; sailors In ship clothes;
caballeros in gay attire — one and all were busy. But
suddenly work ceased. Their task was finished. Amid
an almost breathless silence Father Junipero Serra blessed
the brushwood chapel, the site upon which it stood, and
the cross that reared before it. And then, with all the
pomp and ceremony that the circumstances permitted.
High Mass was sung. With a salvo of musketry the
royal standard of Spain was flung to the breeze; while
bells rang out their solemn notes, and incense floated over
the little altar — Incense, v/hich slowly wafting its way
seaward, seemed striving to carry the good tidings across
the great waters.

And so was born the first Callfornian Mission — San
Diego de Alcala — prophetically named by Viscaino, a
hundred and sixty-seven years before.

More pretentious buildings soon came into being;

10 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

the wooden stockade gave way to a high wall of brick, and,
for sixty years or so, within the quadrangle of the Presidio
lived and died the first Spanish colony of upper Cali-
fornia. But, though the soldier and the priest worked
side by side, Spain was always influenced primarily by
lust of Empire rather than by religious zeal, and the sword
in point of authority was ever above the cross. It was
the old and the always nev/ conflict between Church and
State; of petty interference by secular authorities in
matters strictly religious. Even the saintly Father Serra
was called "a troublesome meddler" for daring to fight
against a "civilization that arrived on a powder wagon."
In 1774 came the inevitable split; and the missionaries,
with their little'company of Indian converts, sought new
fields.

A few miles up the river an ideal site was located and,
before many months had passed, they were housed under
better conditions than at Cosoy. For more than a year
the work proceeded prosperously, with growing herds,
increasing crops, and the far more important spiritual
crop of several hundred converts. Then, without reason,
unless the Medicine Men who had always wielded an
enormous power, found it waning and incited their fol-
lowers to conspire against the lives of the opposing
Priests, eight hundred pagans, under cover of the mid-
night darkness, stole down upon the eight white men
of the mission. Tlic buildings were put to flame

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 1 1

Father Jaume, a valiant figure of a man, unarmed and
alone, came out into the glare of the firelight and, as
simply as if in the quiet of his little chapel, greeted the
savage, howling mob with his usual salutation: Amad a
Dios hijos — (Love God, my children). But his courage
and faith then availed nothing. He was seized and
tortured to death in a frightful manner. His spirit,
however, lives, and many bear witness that to this very
day a white-robed figure, with lighted candle and cross,
can be seen moving about the ruins.

The neophytes, in time, rallied about their spiritual
Fathers, and the mission, as we know it from drawings
still extant, was then begun, though not fully completed
until 1813. They quarried all the. stone, made the needed
thousands of adobe bricks, and felled the timber which
oftentimes grew as many as sixty miles away. Toilsome
work, but lightened Into a fiesta by the understanding
priests who, relaying the Indians in groups a mile apart,
sprinkled with holy water the prepared timber, and, to a
song accompaniment, hoisted these rafters to the shoulders
of the first in line, who transferred them to the second
group, and so, without once touching unhallowed ground,
they were carried all the sixty miles to the church.

The day came when something like forty square
miles were under the guidance of this one mission. A
single crop of wheat, barley and corn amounted to
21,000 bushels. In cattle, horses and sheep they tallied

12 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

26,000 head. And at nightfall, when the Angelus rang,
hundreds of the self-same savages, upon whom, at the
memorable founding In 1769 Father Serra had gazed In
loving anticipation, were assembled, now gentle, clean
and clothed, in prayer.

Secularization — ^Mexico's desire to pay her debts
with other people's property — a virtual confiscation,
sounded the death knell to this dream of patriarchical
government.

To-day Cosoy, San Diego Old Town, is virtually a
ruin to which "picturesque" could not, with honesty, be
applied. The average tourist Is drawn to it, not because
of Its mission memories, but for the reason that fiction
has woven Old Town into the romance of Ramona. To
be sure, fiction has been capitalized, and a very creditable
and costly restoration of the storied marriage place has
been made; while truth, so much stranger than any
fiction — a truth that should be the treasured glory of the
city and the state — must satisfy itself with a memorial
cross built largely of tile, dug up from the surrounding
fields. Presidio Hill, the birthplace of all the missions,
is only a weed-covered mound; while the mission build-
ings, six miles away, are wrecked beyond even a semblance
<A their former glory. To the thieving "hack driver" of
present San Diego, they represent only another source of
graft about which tales can be woven for the credulous

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 13

tourist, to whom they sell chppings of a near-by bush,
grown, they say, from the original crown of thorns. Or
else, with bated breath, they point to two poor, mutilated,
sacred paintings, and tell how the arrows, fired during the
great insurrection, once piercing them, fell harmless to
the ground.

CHAPTER II

THE JOURNEY FROM SAN DIEGO, WITH A FIESTA AT SAN
LUIS REY AND THE RECORD OF HER ASISTENCIA PALA

San Diego's real estate operators (and there are so
many, it is said they are forced to wear secret emblems to
keep from bothering one another) having had visions of
a world center, grabbed seventy-eight square miles of
land, all of which was incorporated within the city limits.
This gluttony brought on acute financial indigestion, and,
for years, the highways were, in consequence, little better
than by-ways.

There are, to be sure, well asphalted streets from the
Plaza center of San Diego through Murphy Canyon to
the bridge, the farther end of which marks the entrance
to the mission grounds, but the right-angle turn to the
left is only a country road. This is the one that was
always traveled by the sandal-shod Fathers in their
walks between Mission and Presidio. It runs beside the
San Diego River through Mission Valley to Old Town
where are found the two giant palms, mothers of all the
palms in California, which were planted by the Padres
in 1769 — until recently so highly reverenced as to be

14

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 15

used for hitching posts and as the most prominent place
upon which egotistical tourists from Fool-town could
carve their names.

Perhaps another four miles and the road branches
sharply oceanward, following the sea to La Jolla. This
artistic little settlement, the home of a considerable
colony of painters presumably derived its name ('* cave-
hole") from the sea-cut caverns in the promontory upon
which it rests. Leaving it, the road rounds a hill nearby,
which gives wonderful backward views of the bay and
the rambling one-storied houses, conforming to every
irregularity of the rocks; and mounts the grade of the
"Torrey" pines. They are scientifically famous as being
the only example in the world of their species, which
bears a cluster of five needles, instead of the customary
three; and are artistically famous as well, judging from
the numbers of pictures that have been painted of them.

Now comes Del Mar (of the sea), and from her
cheery Elizabethan inn, you have an "eye encompassed"
sweep of more than forty miles. Go there, as did the
writer, just as the sun was drowsily preparing for bed;
when with dreamy brush, he paints in magic colors the
curtain of the sky, behind which he is to sink asleep; then
when darkness falls about you, watch the eyes of heaven
open, one by one — and the spell of California will be
upon you.

On leaving Del Mar, one hears the sea "crooning in

16 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

long rolling breakers against gleaming shore-lines" and
for many a mile you cling to the ocean — passing Cardiff,
the dream city of an enthusiastic Englishman, where
streets, cutting through as yet vacant lots exhibit all the
hauteur lent by such aristocratic names as Oxford, Cam-
bridge, Westminster, Dublin and Kilkenny; by Enclnlas,
little oaks it means, though the trees are mostly eucalyp-
tus, deadening the air with sickly odor; through Carlsbad
(so called upon the maps, but since the war the "bad"
has been taken out and thus Germany loses one more
disciple). Then comes the city of Ocean Side, forty-three
miles from San Diego, living up to Its name by being
placed considerably further from the ocean than most of
the towns already passed. But what interests the
Saunterers most particularly Is the mission bell post
pointing Inland, with the Inscription: San Luis Rey 4.7
miles. Another unimproved country road, but the true
Camino Real.

All In the golden weather
Forth let us ride to-day,

You and I together

On the King's Highway.

The blue skies above us,
And below the shining sea;

There's many a road to travel,
But 'tis this road for me.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 17

It's a long road and sunny,

It's a long road and old,
And the brown padres made it

For the flocks of the fold ;
They made it for the sandals

Of the sinner folk that trod
From the fields in the open

To the shelter house of God.

— From The King's Highway {El Camino
Real) by John S. McGroarty.

SAN LUIS, REY DE FRANCIA

The twenty-fifth of August, 1802, dawns at last; the
day long awaited and for which all preparations have
long since been made. Not alone is it the feast day of
the Patron Saint, San Luis — Louis the Ninth, King of
France, canonized in 1297 for his piety during the Cru-
sades, but it celebrates the completion of the church,
dedicated to San Luis when it was founded four years
before.

Small wonder that to-day the pleasure loving Indians
have to be rounded up by the Alcades and forced under
whip lash into the very doors of the sanctuary. How the
Alcades love to flourish their badge of authority — a
scourge of raw-hide ten feet long, plaited to the thickness -
of one's wrist! And little do the Alcades realize that

18 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

theirs is the reward of laziness, for the knowing Padres
finding it impossible to make them work in the fields,
cloak them with brief power that forces them to work
even harder and longer, persuading their fellows.

It is a restless crowd that finally gathers indoors this
beautiful August morning. Outdoors is calling. Will
the prayers never cease? Does the white man's God
forget that this is a holiday.?

Mass finally over, there is a pell-mell rush to the
corral, which here is enclosed by a fence of oxen skulls
with horns still outstanding. Forty of the younger
men at once shed the white man's useless garb and,
naked, except for breech cloth, with lasso in hand, step
within the enclosure. At top speed they run round and
round the cattle, yelling with all the power of their
lungs to further excite the animals. In a moment there
is one whirling mass, always twisting and turning in a
circle; a constantly changing outer ring — those on the
inside making every effort to escape without, those on the
outside striving to reach safety within. This gives the
encircling Indians a chance to select with the least danger,
and there is danger for it is of frequent occurrence to be
gored — sometimes to death — even when entering the
corral to lasso for daily food.

Soon the cattle are separated into three groups: de
rodea — for branding or slaughter; de enjrante — for fight-
ing, and de ordena — cows for milking.

The fighting bulls are first coaxed into specially pre-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 19

pared quarters to be groomed for the afternoon's sport.
The ones selected for branding are forced singly through
a gate into adjoining corrals, and a sizzling iron, in the
shape of a church with cross on top, is clapped to their
hind quarters. Those wanted for food are again lassoed
and thrown, their throats cut, the hide stripped off and
pegged to the ground; whilst the carcasses, once cleaned,
are taken to the bake-ovens, which are large enough to
roast the animals entire. The cows for milking are
merely driven into one of the adjacent smaller enclosures,
where the Indian women^'awalt them — three for each cow.
One holds her by the head, a second hangs on to the hind
legs, while a third does the milking. The work thus
divided gives every opportunity for the exchange of
gossip and scandal, so dear to their feminine hearts.

Some of the watching groups soon tire and wander
off to indulge their passion for dancing. Here, again, the
Padres show their wisdom in permitting the Indians to
Indulge In all the pastimes of their savage state, pro-
vided decency is not offended. While the first lesson In
civilization was not to go about entirely naked, but for
men to wear a linen shirt and trousers and women a
chemise and skirt; in native dancing, the men immediately
discard these "worthless" articles and dress their heads
with feathers and their faces and bodies with glaring
mineral colors traced in grotesque patterns. The women's
woven skirts are replaced by those made from tails of

20 CALIFORNIAX TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
squirrels and rabbits, trimmed with bird feathers; their
arms are covered with shell bracelets and their necks
hung with beads. Bones tied with string serve as casta-
nets, while split reeds, the beating of skin drums, the
clapping of hands, the rattling of tortoise shells filled with
pebbles, make a merry discord by which is timed the
singing and dancing. A monotonous droning in a minor
key ever accompanies the dance and to the guttural
i-ah-we-lay, i-ah-we-hay-lah, ha-low-hal-wah-ah-kay, first
one foot and then the other is slowly lifted in a horizontal
movement from right to left; suddenly the arms shoot
outward and the dancers leap from the 'ground and whirl
in dervish ecstasy, only as suddenly to fall back into
rhythmical step with a rapid swaying of the upper body.

Afternoon finds everyone crowding into the inner
quadrangle of the mission, seeking safe places behind the
temporary barricades which line all four sides. Every
available inch of space is soon jammed to suffocation by
stolid-faced Indian men and women. It is a moment
of intense excitement, yet there they sit, outwardly
impassive, with eyes fixed on the door through which the
bull will enter. There is profound silence, except for the
bellowing of the beast as he slowly approaches from his
darkened enclosure. The door suddenly swings aside
and, with a furious snort, in he dashes. Blinded by the
sudden glare, he rushes to the barricade and butts his

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 21

horns in the yielding boards; but a more worthy foe
awaits him — a mountain Hon, captured for this very
purpose by Indian hunters, Is now Inside the ring. A
low snarl, an angry roar, and the lion leaps upon the
bull's flank burying his teeth In the quivering flesh. The
bull paws the ground In helpless rage, rushes wildly around
and around, and, with blood streaming down his sides,
dashes against the wooden enclosure. Writhing and
twisting In a thousand ways, he tries to escape this new
torture, but In vain until, with a last violent effort, he Is
free. But the Hon is no sooner flung to the ground,
than he jumps at the throat. The bull, by this time, with
blood-shot eyes and foaming mouth, maddened by the
pain, thirsts to retaliate. Lowering his head, he meets
his foe In mid-alr. The terrible horns pierce the lion's
belly and carry him uplifted, across the ring, where he Is
finally thrown to the ground like a bundle of rags — dead.

The second act takes place as soon as another bull
appears on the scene, this time with horns well swathed
and blunted.

At once a number of men and the more adventurous
of the boys, hop the barrier and with coats, shawls, or
strips of cloth start in to bait him — teasing and badgering
him in every way possible. They twist his tail, jump on
his back — some are agile enough to cling there in spite of
his wild bucking about the arena. The nimblest among
them plant poles in the ground and, as the bull runs

22 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

toward them, take flying leaps which land them on the
far side. Those more cruelly inclined stick him with
banderillas de fuogo (firecracker darts that go off the
moment the point penetrates the flesh) until, maddened
by pain and blinded by rage, the bull goes running amuck,
knocking down first one and then another, or with
lowered horns tosses a too daring lad. Again and again
the bull and his tormentors disappear in a cloud of dust;
but scraped faces or bruised limbs for the amateur
matador and a weary, very disgusted bull is the ordinary
ending.

Evening comes all too quickly, but with the first dark-
ness, dozens of fires brighten the night. Around each fire
squat eight peon gamblers, four to a side. One group hold In
their hands two bones, a black and a white one, tied
together by a cord some dozen Inches long. A blanket
lies spread on the ground in front of each four players.
Back of the gamblers are circled the women, just out of
the line of light, who, as the players holding the peon
bone bend forward to grasp the blanket with their teeth,
break forth In wild incantations. With hands fumbling
beneath the blanket, the players suddenly rise to their
knees, drop the blanket from their teeth, and sway from
side to side in time with the chant. The opposing four
are supposed to guess who has the black bone; if suc-
cessful, they get the peon, if unsuccessful one counter is

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 23

placed in front of the winning side. There are fourteen
counters and all must be won to win the game. Daylight
finds many still playing.
But the fiesta is over.

While San Luis Rey is the second "pearl" of the
mission rosary it Is the eighteenth In point of foundation
and, with past experience to draw upon, was brought to
life under far better auspices than any of the earlier
missions, consequently it was exceedingly prosperous
from the very start. At the height of its prosperity,
about 1826, it is described by a traveler who visited it.
"Turning inland from the sea [Oceanside where the sign
post gives the distance of 4.7 miles] and after a hard
canter of an hour and a half, I saw, on a piece of rising
ground, the superb buildings of San Luis Rey, whose
glittering whiteness flashed back the rays of the setting
sun. At this distance it had all the appearance of some
fairy palace forming a square five hundred feet on each
side; the main facade was a long peristyle borne on
thirty-two square pillars. Within was a court, around
which ran the cloister; In the center was a fountain
playing day and night. Inside the walls dwelt nearly
three thousand neophytes, to say nothing of the other
thousands who, directly or indirectly, were being
influenced for better."

The original beauty of Its many buildings and its

24 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

great prosperity were directly traceable to the zeal and
devotion of Father Peyri and no other missionary left
behind him a finer record than did this padre — a thorough-
going man and at the same time almost a saint, with so
strong a personality as to make a lasting impression
upon even these phlegmatic Indians who, for many
years after his departure, placed candles and flowers in
front of his picture to which they offered up prayers.
They preferred praying to a saint of proven goodness,
rather than to one of storied virtue.

Then came secularization and, if the writers of that
time are to be beheved, of all the vast herd only one
hundred and ninety cattle remained and but thirty-
five of those one-time happy, prosperous Indians. The
buildings were pillaged for the tiles and rafters; the
very arches were blown to bits for the sake of a few bricks,
and then to overflow the brimming cup of blasphemy,
ranch houses were built from this wreckage, built within
the very site of the denuded mission.

San Luis, while passing through the same unfortunate
phases as did all the other missions, had the good fortune
in 1892 to be selected as the seat of a college for training
Franciscans. With such meager means as the church
could spare, restoration then began, and thanks to the
original materials on the ground, the work progressed
sufficiently for the Church to be rc-dedicated in 1893.

In the scats of honor sat three old Indian women who
had been present at the original dedication in 1802.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 25

El Camino Real de Pala is a good dirt road and as far
as Bonsall, eight miles away, runs over fertile rolling
plains, now yellowed with ripening grain. The succeed-
ing twelve miles to Pala, however, wind through a rocky
valley following the bank of what must have been an
amazingly uneasy consclenced river for It seems to be
forever turning and twisting In its bed. A rocky bed at
that; and a rocky country, with boulders overhanging
the ver}^ road as though ready to drop. Hot, too, some-
thing like 100 in the shade — "and no shade." Seemingly,
nothing could grow here except "Burbank's folly" —
a spineless cactus which covers the fields on both sides.

But again the end justifies the means, and the end of
our road discloses a beautiful, pure white Campanile,
locally as famous as Is St. Mark's or Pisa In its native
land — the Campanile of San Antonio de Pala.

Agua Callente, for centuries the home of the Pala-
tlnguas (Hot-water Indians), was coveted by the white
man when once he learned the medicinal value of the
warm springs to which, from time Immemorial, the
Indians had resorted in case of sickness. They had found
these healing waters even more efficacious than their
Temescals — something akin to Roman baths.

But why should the white man pay the "dog of an
Indian" each time he wants to drink of these spring
waters or bathe In them.f* What cared he that there the
Indians were born, married and had burled their dead.f*

26 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Spanish law and Mexican law, to be sure, recognize their
rights; as for that, so does American law. But American
law Is made to say that the Indians must confirm these
rights by making application before accredited agents and
no one ever thought of explaining this to the Indians.
Seeing that the Indian, If he reads at all, reads only
Spanish, what skilfully stacked cards for the thieving
white man ! Finally comes the day when the unsuspecting
natives are legally — God save the mark! — ordered from
their life-long homes. Some meet this order fatalistically;
some In ugly fighting mood; some In despair, but all
refuse to lift a hand in the moving and Instinctively turn
to the graves of their ancestors for consolation. Weeping
and walling, they throw themselves before the rude, un-
palnted crosses which mark the last resting place of those
held so dear. From cemetery they go to chapel where
they prostrate themselves In front of the white man's
God. Is he displeased, or, when he says, "Come unto
me all ye that labor and are heavy laden," is he thinking
only of white faces .f* In order to enforce this order of
eviction armed guards are obliged to enter every adobe
and personally strip it of clothing, food and furniture,
which is later piled on the ground outside. The people
by this time are running wildly hither and thither,
watching with tear-stained faces the wreckage of their
homes. Helter skelter, everything Is dumped Into waiting
carts — furniture, baskets, babies, hen-coops, and food —

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 27

all jumbled together. Behind, trails a long grief-laden
procession, which, for three days and nights, toils over the
dusty mesa, and worn and exhausted, reaches Pala,
where the long unused mission church is waiting, with
open doors, to comfort them. But it is many, many a
moon before these once devout Indians can be Induced to
enter and pay devotion to a God who apparently has
deserted them.

It was in 1816 that the good Father Peyri, having been
refused authority to increase the size of San Luis, was able
to dedicate to San Antonio de Padua the simple buildings
now known as Pala to be an asistencia or branch to the
parent church. In no time at all there gathered around
him a thousand or more devout and hard working
natives, but after a few years of peaceful, contented life,
the scourge of secularization overtook them too and
stripped them of all material wealth. Church and cloister
were left as playthings for wind and weather. The acres
tilled by once industrious Indians reverted to the Mexican
government, and by it were granted to the first land-
hungry Yankee, to be transferred by him to the United
States, when time shamed that government into provid-
ing a home for the defrauded Palatinguas.

The half ruined chapel was rebuilt by the help of
public gifts; and it is pleasant to note that those few
mission Indians who still lingered thereabout, not to be

28 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
outdone by richer neighbors, gave freely of all they had
to give — their time — for the rebuilding.

Once more peace and contentment reign.

CHAPTER III

THE THIRTY-FIVE-MILE JAUNT FROM SAN LUIS REY AND
THE STORY OF THE TRAGEDY AT SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

The road still clings to ocean's side, oftentimes in
such close embrace that the spray from rolling breakers
enfolds the "saunterers." Finally it pushes away and
wanders towards the valley which widens into a great
orchard plain, where orange trees sweeten the air, and
peach and almond blossoms color the landscape. But
ocean's magnetic call proves too strong and the phil-
andering road, again enticed, hastens back and then, as
if ashamed of giving way to the weakness, hides behind
a bluff, high and scarred and browned by the scorching
sun to a hundred rich and varying shades.

The first town passed is Las Flores, which, as the
name implies, is the center of great flower ranches,
where carnations carpet the fields. Then comes San
Onofre, notable only as the border town of San Diego
County, the most distant out-post of San Diego's grab-
bing land-sharks. Finally, the traveller reaches Serra,

29

30 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

near which is the setting of one of Dana's famous ex-
ploits, so realistically told in "Two Years Before the
Mast." To-day, all that marks that once busy beach
is a tumble-down shed on the top of the sheer thousand-
foot-high cliff. At the base of this are still the pro-
truding rocks on which the cattle hides, thrown from
above, used to catch and pile. Now, they are white
with the bird-lime of countless roosting sea-gulls — other-
wise not a sign of life.

Three miles sharp inland and one reaches the sleepy
little town of Capistrano, thirty-five miles from San
Luis Rey.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

It is an oppressively heavy, murky morning, the air
so surcharged with electricity that the dullest of nerves
feels an answering tingle; while, over the sensitively
responsive creeps an apprehension of impending evil,
so real that not even the music of the saintly bells, now
calling to early mass, is able to dispel it.

It is the morning of December 8th, in the year 1812,
the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day
of obligation, and there is not one man or woman within
sound of these ringing chimes, physically able to drag
himself or herself to church, who is not in church. Soon
they are kneeling oix the bare tiled floor, of necessity,
for only the musicians and singers, now somewhat noisily

^Ms^^i^WCIk^w. .^iWf ■■MUIHIII

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 31

preparing for service in the choir loft above the entrance
door, are privileged to have a bench upon which to sit.

A few moments of waiting, and four Indian acolytes
appear at the sacristy door. Approaching with devout
genuflexions, they commence to light the altar, and as
the flames flicker into steady glow, the nine statues, set
in the nine niches of the reredos, seem to step out from
their shadowed recesses and bless the kneeling people.
There is Mary Magdalene, whose shining face endears
her to all penitent women; Dominic, who, as founder
of the Dominicians, fought for the conversion of heretics,
and fights here again to-day; Antony, who was forever
railing against covetousness and miserliness; Saint John,
the patron saint; Madonnna with the child, and Mary,
the Blessed Virgin; all seemed to be interceding, praying,
and by their presence bringing comfort to contrite hearts.

The candle light, reflected by the heavy silver candle-
sticks adorning the altar, is caught up by the two mirrors
at either side, and broken into a hundred rays which
settle in aureoles about the sacred images. Two convex
mirrors, framed in shining gold, hang at the altar, so
that the priests, even while saying mass, may watch
the often restive Indian congregation.

And every known method is employed to seize and
hold their wandering attention. All seven domes of the
church are painted in as many different garish colors,
while the sides are decked in crude designs of raw pig-

32 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
ments, pleasing to their primitive taste. The walls are
thickly hung with pictures and statues of angels and
saints, and the fourteen stations of the cross. In a
further attempt to assist the dull Indian mmd to grasp
religious truths, every church symbol that is calculated
to strike the ignorant savage with awe is also used —
pictures of hell, death, judgment, and purgatory. One
banner, which hangs clear of the wall. Is palnfed on both
sides — the one side with a scene from the life of the
Virgin, the other showing Satan roasting In the flames
of hell; offering, as it were, the choice of becoming a
subject of the Holy Mother, or broiling on the gridiron
of his Satanic Majesty, and so realistically depicted that
the issue is seldom In doubt.

At the first movement of tne Mass, with the Kyrie
Eleison, the neophyte orchestra, playing violin, flute,
drum and cymbal, accompanies the singers. Stretched
across the music racks are two huge leather-covered,
iron-clasped hymn-books whose vellum leaves are limned
in a gigantic score, the notes in different colors to in-
dicate the different parts. A choir master frantically
tries to direct with a long pole closely resembling a
billiard cue. And how the Indians love to sing. What-
ever they may lack in melody, they make up in power
of lung.

The Sanctus bell rings thrice, and the faithful fall
prostrate — their heads almost touching the pavement,

THE CONFESSIONAL, SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 33
their hands, the meanwhile, fumbhng with rude rosaries.

At the altar, in gorgeous chasuble of woven silk and
silver, the priest bowing low, says: hi spiritu humilitatis,
et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te Domine — (Accept
us. Oh Lord, in the spirit of humility and contrition of
heart, and grant that the sacrifice we offer this day in
thy sight may be pleasing to Thee). There is a deep
silence, not a movement — not a sound. It is as though
the people are expecting a divine apparition, a mys-
terious voice, or some awful revelation to come from
the dim sanctuary.

The buildings slightly tremble, but this passes unno-
ticed by the people in the clutch of religious fervor,
and the priest continues: Ne perdas cum impiis animam
meajn.

A low pitched rumbling issues from the earth, as it
rises and falls in sympathy with the infernal refrain.
The church rocks in violent movement until the domes
split wide apart and the roof comes crashing to the
ground. The people, paralyzed with fear, still kneel,
with bowed heads and clasped hands, as though life
itself were suspended.

Another violent trembling. The bell tower sways
back and forth, and, gaining momentum with every
movement, it finally topples and falls, full length, upon
the Plaza far below. The gilded cock, that once topped
the spire in exultant pose, lies with broken wings and
sheared comb, a symbol of pride's short reign.

34 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Far above the noise of the crashing timbers and
falling stones is heard the voice of the priest, Sursum
corda, as he beckons to all to come within the sanctuary.
All who reach there are saved, but not one other, unless
you are to believe the legend which tells that, in the
late afternoon whilst the workers are striving to clear
away the wreckage, a faint cry is heard coming from
a mass of debris, and, digging deep, they find a new-
born babe who is brought into the world by the hand
of terror. The child lives and is known as Nino del
Temblor, or Child of the Earthquake.

It was In November, 1776, that this mission was
actually founded, though a fruitless attempt had been
made some twelve months before, which causes some
historians to incorrectly record 1775 as the foundation
date. It was named after St. John, born in Capis-
trano — San Juan Caplstrano, a doughty old saint, always
in the thick of every fight, usually in the forefront, with
a crucifix as his only weapon. But his main claim to
sainthood came, not from fighting but from preaching
to the army of Hunyadi, and the Book of Golden
Traditions naively recites at some length, how very
"moving" he was.

Many years rolled by before the mission secured
the material wealth and necessary number of converts
to even start construction of the great church, which

THE ALTAR OF THE ORIGINAL CHURCH OF SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 35

was intended to be a lasting monument to the Fran-
ciscan fathers and their devoted followers. Not until
1797, eleven years after the foundation, did the Padres
find themselves strongly enough entrenched to attempt
to cope with this herculean task; for without architec-
tural training, with unskilled labor and rude tools, the
task was inded herculean and the results little short of
marvelous. A church was laid out in the form of a
Roman cross, 180 feet long and 90 feet wide, with
a tower so high that it could be seen at least ten miles
away. The building material was of stone, which had
to be brought from a quarry six miles distant. To do
this, the entire community was enrolled — men and
women, old and young; children, little and big — one
and all carried, from quarry to building, such stones as
their strength permitted, creeping back and forth in an
endless chain, like a stream of mason-ants.

It took nine long weary years before the great church
could be blessed, and only six short years later came
the earthquake described in our last section, and the
destruction of this devout work.

Judging from ruined cornices, doorways and arches
which show many an exquisite touch, probably no other
mission church was so elaborately carved as Caplstrano.
The official records recount how a master sculptor was
brought from Mexico and put in sole charge of the
stone carving, with permission to carry out his own

36 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Ideas — and he certainly gave full sway to idolatrous
fancy. Most of the keystones bear emblems whose
significance is full of mystery, though it should not be
much eflPort of the imagination to lay them at the door
of Aztec paganism. Doing so, history would only be
repeating Itself. At the time when Christianity tri-
umphed over paganism, wealthy pagans were being
buried in sarcophagi, decorated with reliefs inspired by
mythology, and the Christians who followed the pagan
example employed the same artists, who were so accus-
tomed to the Introduction of certain decorative motifs,
that we still see on Christian sarcophagi. Medusa heads,
griffens and cuplds, the primitive sense of which has
long since been forgotten.

The present village of Capistrano remains, In spirit,
much the same religiously superstitious town that it was
years ago, even though modern thought has forced a
change in form and method. In earlier days the great
drama of Calvary was accepted by the inhabitants as
a debt that must always be paid. They were obsessed
with the conviction that the sufferings they individually
or collectively could inflict on some village Judas would
in a way mitigate the sufferings of that far-away white
God about whose trials and tribulations the Padres daily
taught them.

Following a service called Las TInieblas — utter dark-
ness— held In an unlightcd church, with even the win-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 37

dows covered, when boards studded with nails were
rasped together, boxes full of stones rattled and chains
clanked — all expressive of the darkness and the fear-
some noises at the crucifixion — the people betook them-
selves to the Plaza, where four stakes had been driven
deep into the ground, a wild bull tied to them, with a
Judas already fastened to his back, awaiting the orgy
of vengeance. To the clicking of prayer beads might
be heard "The days of the sorrows of Jesus are here
and must be avenged."

To-day, here alone in all America (so far as the writer
knows), this old ceremony is relived in an annual hang-
ing of a straw effigy of Judas on the day of sorrows —
Good Friday.

Capistrano has the questionable distinction of being
the first of all the missions to be secularized, an act
that took place in 1833. So great was the destruction
and vandalism that twenty-two years later all this once
costly pile was sold for ^710. The church has never
been rebuilt, the cloister ruins but little restored, and
most of the broken corridor pillars give support now,
only to rose and honeysuckle vines, which fill the grass-
grown courtyard with delicate fragrance. When dusk
lays ivts veiling hand over the scars made by time and
man, the Inspiring beauty of this noble ruin fills the soul
with a peace and joy, never to be forgotten.

CHAPTER IV

ON TO SAN GABRIEL; HER HISTORY, TOGETHER WITH
A LEGEND OF HER BELLS

The El Camino Real plunges farther and farther into
the valley, and for two hundred miles or more never so
much as attempts to catch a glimpse of Ocean's face,
despite the many enticing bypaths and smooth asphalted
roads which branch off from the highway and beckon
seaward. All the way, well beyond Los Angeles, the
seaside is fairly dotted with charming summer colonies,
each modestly bidding for patronage by claiming the
widest beach in the world or the deepest swimming pool
on earth — something or other bigger or greater than
anywhere else on any known hemisphere.

Soon the Kingdom of Oranges is entered, and here
the tree is sovereign. Some are in full maturity, with
branches bending under the golden fruit; others in the
springtime of youth, white with fragrant blossoms; many,
still in baby clothes, carefully nursed in cradles of wire —
acres and acres of yellow and green. Suddenly the road
shifts from country to city, when there follows a pro-
cession of assorted sized towns, where the houses in-

38

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 39
variably wrap themselves in wondrous blankets of bou-
gainvillea, honeysuckle or climbing rambler, only to hide
shyly behind hedges of heliotrope, geranium and calla
lilies.

The first town of importance is Anaheim, blessed
with a strong German accent and an evident pride in
the efficiency that brought the original irrigating plant
to California and taught native Californians how much
better than nature-rain was the power to make rain,
whenever and wherever wanted, by merely turning a
spigot. Then follows Fullerton and Whittier, the last
a "friendly" thee and thou town, named by its Quaker
founders after their beloved poet.

Only a couple of miles farther and the bell post
points to San Gabriel boulevard, which runs straight to
the village of that name. Another one of those sleepy
Spanish-Mexican villages, whose inhabitants "are singu-
larly free from the dread disease of doing something
always."

SAN GABRIEL

Not far from Seville, in the little town of Campagna,
so famous for bell casting that its name lives forever in
Campanile (the bell tower), a crowd of religionists could
be seen gathering about the well-known foundry of Paula
Ruelas, devoutly eager to witness the birth of a bell
which had been consecrated to the holy church.

40 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
In the open-air fire-pit was a huge cauldron, brim-
ming full of molten copper and tin, which cast an
unearthly glow over two of Ruelas's assistants, as they
slowly stirred the spluttering, sizzling liquid. The model
shell, into which the metal would soon be poured and
allowed to cool in bell form, stood ready, close by, the
men only waiting the word of command from their
master. But there was yet one further ceremony before
casting, to-day merely a matter of form, as only monks,
nuns and the poor of the town were present. And
Ruelas somewhat perfunctorily steps forward and asks:
"Is there anyone present who wishes to sweeten the
voice of this bell with a silver offering?" For in these
days there was a firm belief in the efiicacy of silver.

Far up in front, where he had squirmed his way
through the crowd, stood little nine-year-old Miguel,
with a look of childish exaltation on his face. Clutched
tight in chubby hand was his most cherished possession —
a real de plata — which, for safety, had been thrust deep
into trouser pocket. For a moment he hesitated, but
only for a moment, and then out from its hiding place
came the little piece of silver, which was dropped into
the steaming pot. As the coin struck the liquid fire
there appeared a tiny bubble, which caught by the air,
floated into space, a visible sign of the undying spirit of
sacrifice.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 41

Drawn to the foundry by an almost Irresistible fas-
cination, little Miguel would watch the workmen, day
after day, as they cautiously trimmed and pared away
the metal, testing with swinging clapper after every
cutting. With each test the tones grew sweeter and
sweeter, in time vibrating in musical chord, so
exquisitely perfect, that all hailed the bell as "Angelus,"
and decreed that It should be baptized by that name.
So, one afternoon, Miguel, as silver sponsor, found him-
self, with lighted taper in hand, listening to a white-
vested Bishop and three attendant priests Intoning the
prayers of exorcism, Imploring divine assistance against
the evils of the air — the phantoms, storms and pesti-
lences.

The bell, first washed with pure water, mixed with
salt, was carefully dried with towels of spotless white.
Then it was breathed upon to signify the expulsion of
the devil, and annolnted with oil to symbolize the gift
of the holy spirit. Finally, the Thurible, filled with
myrrh and Incense, was placed beneath it, and as the
fragrant smoke rose within, the priests sprinkled the
bell thrice with holy water and named it "Ave Maria
Santisslma." The Bishop, the meanwhile, with out-
stretched hands, prayed: "May this bell be hallowed.
Oh Lord, and consecrated in the name of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Ghost. Peace be to thee."

42 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Ancient usage declared that Miguel was spiritually-
bound to the Angelus bell with bonds that neither time
nor distance could break.

Years passed and the lad Miguel, who had sacrificed
his all in boyhood, now grown to manhood, dons the
brown garb of the Franciscans, and as Father Miguel
Sanchez consecrated his life to perpetual sacrifice. With
St. Francis, he believed that the chief aim in life was to
help others, not by praying alone in a cell or doing
penance but by "spending himself" in (the) helping; so
when the call came for new-world missionaries it was
only natural that he should be one of the first to beg
for permission to devote himself to work amongst the
Indians of America. His petition being granted, he
sailed for Mexico, and from thence journeyed to San
Diego, where he awaited orders from the Father Presi-
dente who, in course of time, appointed him to San
Gabriel.

With a Christian Indian as his only companion and
guide. Father Miguel traveled over the trail blazed by
the Padres who went before him — a long, slender thread
stretching over the hills and zig-zagging down into the
canyons beyond.

Towards the evening of the fourth day, after passing
through the plains of San Gabriel, filled with great herds
of cattle that fled swiftly at his coming, he neared the
cultivated fields where hundreds of Indians were work-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 43
ing. Even as he approached, the church bell tolled the
hour for prayer, and all, wherever they happened to be,
knelt upon the ground; the beasts of burden themselves
stopping at the first sound of the bell.

"At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn;
In joy and woe, in good and ill.
Mother of God be with us still."
The bell ceases to ring, and all arise — all except
Father Miguel, who still kneels, as if in a dream. Those
clear sweet tones carry him back to long forgotten days,
sweeping away in the rush of emotions all sense of present
surroundings.

He rouses himself with an effort. Faintness from
lack of food and the fatigues of the journey are to blame,
he thinks. But nevertheless he hastens his steps, and
on arriving at the bell tower mounts the ladder and
eagerly scans the bell inscriptions.

Ave Maria Santissima

Paula Ruelas

me fecit

1730

he reads, and man though he is, he weeps for joy. It

is the meeting of a beloved friend, lost and found again.

In all the years that follow, no matter how hard the

day's work nor how difficult or exacting the tasks that

lay before him, never once did he miss ringing with his

44 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

own hands the Angelus for evening prayer. Even when
the years took their toll and the strength from his arms,
the task was as easy as in the days of his early man-
hood— the bell almost rang itself. And when at last,
just before sunset, after only a few hours' illness, Father
Miguel sank to his last sleep, legend asserts that the Ave
Maria, in order to announce his departure, began to
ring of its own accord. "Or was it only the bells in
heaven which rang out a welcome to his pious soul upon
its entrance into the company of angels?"

Mission San Gabriel, dedicated in 1771 to the Arch-
angel who, in mediaeval romance was known as the
messenger of God who carried to heaven the prayers
of men, was built in the usual Franciscan style — Spanish,
flavored generously with Moorish, to which was added
just a dash of early French and Romanic.

Grouped about a court or patio were the church,
monastery, guardhouse and secular quarters, presenting
a solid outer wall practically unscalable by the natives,
and when the buildings were roofed with tile, safe even
against fire-arrows, the favorite fighting weapon of the
Indians. In San Gabriel, for a very considerable time,
there proved to be a far greater need for protection
against savage hordes than at most of the other mis-
sions, not because the Indians were uncommonly bad,
but because the soldiers were distinctly worse. During

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 45

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spain, driven
by an overpowering lust for new and rich territory,
always employed the church and her priests as the most
inexpensive and handy weapon. But her main reliance
was upon force, and the soldiery ever accompanied the
Padre in his pioneer work. Usually these soldiers were
the off-scourings of the army. Many were convicts.
Altogether they were an idle, Godless crowd, who shunned
work, and, as far as possible, church; towards both they
had to be encouraged rather forcibly, just as the Irish-
man enticed the pig into the pen with a pitchfork — the
Padres' pitchfork being the religious superstitions of the
age. Here in San Gabriel, with no obligatory military
duties to perform, the soldiers took to hunting as a
pastime, an innocent enough amusement if their choice
of game had not been so unfortunate; for it happened
that many of the Indian women had husbands, in whom
was aroused not only a pardonable skepticism about the
virtues of this new religion, but a violent antagonism
against those who preached it — a bitterness so actively
displayed, that both priests and soldiers came miracu-
lously near to losing their lives. The Book of Holy Tra-
ditions cites several miracles, which alone prevented an
otherwise certain death. Once, when entirely surrounded
by superior numbers and about to be massacred, one of
the friars raised aloft and waved the banner upon which
was a picture of the Blessed Virgin, when in a sudden

46 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

transition from hate to humility, the Indians knelt and
made signs of submission. As a matter of fact, according
to secular history, it took almost two years of patient,
sacrificing labor, on the part of the padres, to wipe out
the stain and regain the Indians' confidence.

The church and a small section of the monastery are
the sole heirlooms left by these mission builders to the
present generation. They make a long wall, of pinkish
gray, crowned with tile of dullish red, buttressed at the
church end by ten pillars, which relieve somewhat its
fortress-like appearance. Between church and monas-
tery, as part of the wall, is the beautiful campanile, a
constant inspiration to painter and poet.
"And every note of every bell
Sang: 'Gabriel!' rang: * Gabriel !'_
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel the Archangel. "
What is left of the monastery serves as a museum,
guarded by a shrewd lay-brother, who punches a cash
register as you buy your admittance, with all the assur-
ance of a side-showman. And, when a sufficiently large
crowd of sightseers have assembled, he turns you over
in a bunch to one of the guides, who sing-songs a few
stories of the past, trots you through the church and
sacristy, and turns you out upon the street. Not at all
a holy mission atmosphere, but apparently a very lucra-

THE STAIRWAY TO THE CHOIR, SAN GABRIEL MISSION

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 47

tive performance, since the priests look well-fed, and the
buildings are well-kept.

As the Mission San Gabriel is but a scant half hour's
automobile run, and a pleasant one at that, from Los
Angeles or Pasadena, it would always be included in the
regular itinerary of a certain number of Southern Cali-
fornia's winter idlers; but it actually is visited by many
thousands, drawn primarily by the Mission Play, pro-
duced annually just opposite the church.

Practically all the roles in this play, just as at Ober-
ammergau, are assigned to the local inhabitants, who by
religion Catholics, and by race Spanish or Mexican, live
in everyday life most of their " Darts"; for the old cus-
toms still prevail and the 'old-time solemn processions
winding through the quiet streets with lighted tapers,
garlands of flowers and smoking incense, can still be
seen.

The "beads" are still told and the prayers still sung
in the old tongue, while even the English-taught school
children always play in Spanish. It is a people that
still blindly cling to the old belief that God created the
world in Spanish, even though the truth is stretched
when asserting "that the Tempter persuaded Eve in
ItaHan, and Adam begged pardon in French."

In the gardens, still belonging to San Gabriel Mis-
sion, are a remnant of the 150,000 vines, which were

48 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

once fenced in by a hedge of cactus, twelve feet high,
as protection from the roaming cattle. It was at San
Gabriel that the first vineyards of California were planted,
and in prosperous years they yielded a good thousand
barrels of wine and several hundred of brandy. Since
July, 1919, sad to relate, all the product of these vines
must be exported to the "heathen."

The padres have left on yellowed parchment, in
beautifully engrossed handwriting, the history of San
Gabriel from the time of its dedication. They tell of
the good old days when the mission lands extended for
miles in all directions — on the east as far as the very
mountains. The cemetery and one small field is all that
remains. It was the same sickening story of loot and
plunder, under the guise of secularization, which was an
excuse for human as well as material destruction; for
most of the Mission Indians (children always, whatever
their age) when left to themselves not only lapsed into
the bestial habits of their former savage state, but fell
an easy prey to all the white man's vices.

CHAPTER V

THE ROADWAY TO SAN FERNANDO WITH A SKETCH OF
HER RISE AND FALL

Much of the thirty-two-mile road, connecting San
Gabriel to San Fernando runs through cities or suburbs of
cities, with a forced slackening of speed that makes the
old Padre's ambling burro a fit competitor of the modern
high-powered car. But even if this were not so it would
be an artistic sacrilege to rush through this wealth of
luxuriant trees, shrubs and flowers. All the way in and
out of Pasadena (the crown of the valley) the smooth
macadam is flanked by flower-embowered bungalows,
over which rose-bushes clamber to the very roof-top,
covering it with thousands of blossoms. One enthusiast
claims that if only a pole long enough were available.
Jack and his bean-stalk would be easily outdone by the
humblest flowering plant of California, but let us try and
be truthful and say that an accurate description of this
Pasadena seems to belie its wide reputation as the ideal
health resort of the world — "where you freeze in the
morning and thaw out at noon; where strawberries and

49

50 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

fur coats are in evidence at the same time, while open
fires and open windows are the daily procedure." But
after all, does not the joy of living rest in life's contrasts?

Not far away is Nuestra Senora Reina de los Angeles
— a beautiful and most befitting name during the early
days of that city's existence, when every tongue wagged
in slow stately Spanish. Perhaps no more fitting than
the present day title of "Los" for this Mecca of the middle
west and the middle classes. It is a city that prides her-
self, first and last, on her material progress and modern
methods, hiding away on the shelf of oblivion, just as
years ago we atticed the furniture of our forefathers,
every one of the charming customs and manners of by-
gone days. Hardly fifty years ago strangers visiting this
Spanish settlement would be awakened by a hymn sung
to the morning star — every household taking part. Such
a thing is impossible, they say, to-day, people are too
self-conscious. Yet the custom survives in more rural
Pasadena, where, each Christmas and Easter, choristers
parade the streets and remind a sadly indifferent world
of the birth and resurrection of Christ.

Over Sunset boulevard is the way into Hollywood, so
named in remembrance of a mass to the holy wood of the
cross celebrated by Father Junipero Serra, near what is
now the center of the town. All forgotten thes.e days, of
course. The town is now the home and center of moving
pictures, with a reputation suggestively revealed in the

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 51

current epigram: Are you married or do you live in
Hollywood ?

Near the center of the city turn to the right and over
Cahuenga pass, known as the setting of Cahuenga battle
and the stage for the final negotiations between Colonel
Fremont and General Pico. From there continue to
Sherman Way, through the clean modern towns of Lank-
ershim and Van Nuys, towards the low-lying hills that
lose themselves in dim perspective In the distance rise
two "picture palms" over a hundred feet high and in age,
years over a hundred.

These are the outposts of the Mission San Fernando.

SAN FERNANDO

The last of the California Franciscans, Fray *Tomaso
Estenago, was a most worthy son and follower of the
holy St. Francis, living to the very end in accordance
with the highest ideals and traditions of that self-sacri-
ficing brotherhood.

Born in gloomy old Toledo, in one of those crumbling
palaces imprisoned just behind the ancient bastion, near
the gateway of Puerto del Sol, where the streets are so
narrow that the wheel hubs of passing vehicles scrape the
walls, he passed all of his younger days in the midst of its
mediaeval surroundings. The palace's iron-banded doors,
studded with enormous nails, suggested the entrance way

*"Fray" is Spanish for the Latin "Frater," indicating a rehgious brotherhood.

52 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

to mystery, while the dim court-yards beyond seemed
suitable for any sort of crime and It was entirely the
promptings of this environment that led him to dedicate
himself to a vendetta of vengeance on the death of his
only and well-beloved brother, killed In a quarrel. For
days and nights, seeking his feud enemy, he wandered
through the labyrinth of Toledo's streets; tirelessly per-
sisting In his almost hopeless task, until late one evening
at a crossway where several alleys run In opposite direc-
tions, he came upon the murderer, alone and unarmed,
hiding In the shadow of a portico. As he unsheathed his
stiletto, ready to strike, the man fell en his knees and
stretching out his arms In the form of a cross. Implored
Tomaso, by the mercy of Christ to spare his life. In a
vision Tomaso saw the drama of the crucifixion and
plainly heard the voice of Jesus saying. In answer to the
thief who, fastened to the cross beside him, was begging
for mercy: "Thou art forgiven, verily thou shalt be
with me in Paradise." With the simple-minded belief
of the times Tomaso accepted this as a sign and embraced
his enemy. Together they entered the church of Santa
Maria La Blanca, and prostrated themselves before the
crucifix. The one sobbing out his thanks for having been
saved from crime; the other penitently Imploring forgive-
ness for the crime committed. As they prayed they both
seemed to see the figure of Christ bow his head in token
of the remission of sins — and peace entered their souls.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 53

After this, life completely changed for Tomaso, and his
old world saw him no more. Almost immediately he
made his profession as a novitiate in the Franciscan con-
vent. Being of noble birth and highly educated for the
age in which he lived, his progress was exceedingly rapid
and in a very few years Rome offered him every prefer-
ment, but his youthful experience had enflamed him with
the burning desire to convert sinners and no gift within
the power of the church could turn him from this purpose.
Caught in the current of missionary fervor at that time
sweeping over Spain, he was carried to far-away Cali-
fornia and to the Mission of San Fernando.

Father Tomaso Estenaga was alone and for the nonce,
in spite of wonderful courage and steadfast faith, his
thoughts seemed v/eighted with a grief impossibly
heavy! The austere adobe cell in which he sat was little
calculated to bring solace to either body or mind, and
as he glanced about it a smile flickered across his gentle
face, when he remembered the recent tirade of the Father
Presidente against too luxurious living and the demand
for a strict adherence to the Franciscan rule of absolute
poverty. Except for the crucifix standing in one corner,
in front of which the tile flooring was worn by many hours'
devotion, there was only a four-legged rough-hewn wooden
frame, covered with rawhide, that served as a bed, one
chair and a rude bench-table. The single window, open-
ing out onto the long shaded corridor, was heavily grilled

54 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

with iron, keeping the room for most of the day In semi-
darkness. Subconsciously he contrasted these surround-
ings with the splendors of his old Toledo palace-home, but
even as he did so the setting sun, now in line with the
window, cast a halo of light about the figure stretched in
agony upon the cross, which seemed to say "I saved
others, myself I would not save." ^^ Mea maxima culpa,''^
murmured the priest, "how wonderful to be able to pay
to God that which one has vowed to God," and with a
lightened heart he took from the table in front of him the
document, which had caused his former melancholy.

The backwash from the sea of revolt, started in
Mexico by the Creole priest Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, had
long since swept over the Missions of California. The
French revolution and the Napoleonic wars having drawn
Spain into the "whirlwind of red terror," Carlos IV was
forced to abdicate in favor of Ferdinand VII and he in
turn was driven out by Joseph Bonaparte, so Spain had
no time to think of what might be happening across the
Atlantic, and being able to spare neither troops nor money
her colonies must shift for themselves.

California found herself obliged to apply to the mis-
sions for relief. At first with apologies and an outward
show of deference, later emboldened by the ease with
which supplies were obtained, the Governor requisitioned
huge amounts, giving In return drafts on bankrupt

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 55

Mexico, apparently on the theory that the missions were
like "cows that could be milked without feeding."

"Only Thursday to-day," thinks Father Estenaga,
"and it is the second time this week that I have received
such peremptory demands." Once again he reads the
order.

How am I to keep on meeting these Increasing exac-
tions .f* Can it be that my first duty is to my king rather
than to my religious charges .f* But in his heart he knew
well that that question had been answered centuries ago,
for the Church, while the mouthpiece of God, was ever in
subjection to royalty, and the official representative of
the Spanish king must be obeyed.

For nearly a year now, because of lack of funds.
Father Estenaga had been obliged to deprive the Indians
of those weekly rewards so dear to their childish hearts.
No longer, after each Sunday mass, were to be seen those
happy processions, headed by the mission orchestra,
wending their way, with song and music, to the convento
door where he stood waiting to distribute to one a hand-
kerchief, to another a dress, here a bright trinket, there
a bit of money, with an encouraging and happy word to
each and a final benediction to all. And there was no use
to deceive himself, he must keep on giving so long as
there was left anything that would content the insatiable
demands of the officials and the indolent troops.

Months later, Iturbide, Mexico's first emperor, was

56 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

forced to abdicate, and the succeeding republic showed
even less affection for religion than had the Empire, issu-
ing a proclamation that all Indians desiring to leave the
missions might do so. In furtherance of this proclama-
tion, Don Miguel Alvardo went to the Mission San Fer-
nando, and ordered Father Estenaga to assemble all the
Indians. Half naked and barefoot they gathered about
the Plaza, gazing in sullen silence at the soldiers who had
robbed them of the clothes and shoes that rightfully
belonged to them. In bombastic style DonAlvarado,
harangued the neophytes, urging with all eloquence that
they should free themselves from priestly shackles.
Henceforth, he acclaimed, your trials will be over; no
tyrannical priest can compel you to work, you will be
citizens of a free and glorious republic with none to
molest or punish. And then he called upon all who wished
to enjoy these blessings of freedom to step to the right,
while those content to remain under the hideous bondage
of the Padres should keep to the left.

If Father Estenaga ever craved a recompensing re-
ward for his long sacrificing and tender paternal care, he
received it then and there to a hundred times a hundred.
Of all that throng of unfortunate, overworked, poverty-
stricken Indians just nineteen sneaked to the right and
they shamefacedly soon crept back to their companions,
drawn up in solid ranks on the left.

But the government had only fired the opening gun:

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 57
tax upon tax was imposed, forced loans were made, cattle
were killed without even the mere form of consent of their
owners. Immense tracts of land belonging to the mis-
sions, ever since their foundation, were granted to favor-
ites and then as if drunk with the wine of their own
excesses, the assembly forced through a decree legalizing
the seizure of everything except the churches themselves
and one room for the resident priest. Most of the major-
domos placed in charge by the government were incompe-
tent or stupid, allowing the property to drift to ruin;
some were thoroughly dishonest, ready to sell anything —
livestock, kitchen utensils, farm implements, tools from
the shops, tiles from the roofs — anything with which to
feather their own nests.

Through it all Father Estenaga clung to his post,
watching with breaking heart his spiritual flock dwindle
day by day, as the buildings that once housed them were
one by one wrecked and pillaged beyond repair, while the
once vast herds, that fed them, disappeared over night.
He refused to leave even when the ruin was so complete
that It was with the utmost difficulty that he and a hand-
ful of faithful loving Indians could scrape together food
enough for their barest needs.

Each day as of old, though the church was in ruins and
the altar stripped of its glory, he recited mass, ever hoping
that the good God would turn the hearts of their perse-
cutors. But day by day this little band grew poorer and

58 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

poorer, forced at last to subsist on roots and wild berries,
while Father Estenaga, secretly denied himself of even
this scant fare so that his loyal followers might have the
more. One morning at the Kyrie of the mass he was seen
to totter. Rushing to him, the Indians heard a faint
Domine ecce ad sum — (God, I am here), and he fell back
dead — of starvation.

A pretty legend tells of a flock of swallows
that just then, entering through the broken roof,
alighted about his fallen body, twittering "svalo,"
"svalo" (hence their name), meaning "consolation; I
bring consolation."

San Fernando, Rey de Espagna, to give the mission its
full title, was named after a Spanish King, Ferdinand,
who was canonized, so far as the records seem to relate,
on account of the exceeding peace and happiness of his
home life, to be for all posterity a brilliant example.
The chronicle goes on to explain that he was much under
the Influence of his mother who lived with him after his
marriage. Whether the "peace and happiness" was in
spite of this or because of this the records fail to state;
presumably the former, for otherwise the mother would
have been canonized and not the son.

At any rate, the day good Father Crespi reached that
broad fertile valley lying in the shadow of Sierra Madre —
a valley that his earthly self recognized as the ideal home
for his religious brethren — he fumbled a well-worn parch-

I

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 59

ment calendar and discovered the day to be St. Ferdi-
nand's day, and so, according to usage, the mission be-
came San Fernando.

This was in September, in the year 1797, but for some
reason, apparently not of record, the first chapel built of
adobe was not blessed until 1806, and not until 1818 was
the large church (the present structure) ready for use.
This was also built entirely of adobe which in part
explains the forlorn, tumble-down ruin of to-day. The
mission, religiously, followed along the same path as did
all its fellows, converting its full share of savages, and
bringing under its peaceful sway all the wild men and the
wild lands for miles around. But in this respect it was
no more notable than many of the other missions. San
Fernando's real fame rests rather on material associations,
for gold was first discovered there and discovered by one
of her own Mission Indians who, while hunting for stray-
ing cattle, stopped to rest In the canyon San Felice just
as the Sun reached Its zenith. Lying at full length under
the shade of a big oak tree he happened to espy a cluster
of wild onions, of which he was Inordinately fond, and
lazily stretching out his arm with sheath knife in hand
he began to dig about their roots. Up came the onions —
and a nugget of gold. The Padres endeavored to keep
the secret — not that they so much wanted the gold, but
they did not want the rough characters the news would
surely bring. But all In vain. Hundreds flocked to the
canyon and have left their imprints in such local names as

60 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

"Swell-head Diggings," "Shirt-tall Canyon" and "Hell's
Hollow."

American military history has also marked this mis-
sion with her own stamp of fame, for here was fought the
deciding conflict when California rose to drive out the
Alexlcans, and here In later years General Fremont and his
troops were quartered until the signing of the Cahuenga
treaty, which closed all hostilities against the United
States. The casual visitor of to-day finds only a rickety,
crumbling church and, where the buildings once con-
nected church to convents, a shapeless mass of adobe, the
earthen bricks washed by torrential rains back to the
ground from which they sprung — "dust to dust." The
convento proper, thanks to a rich Mexican archbishop,
who was driven from his own country by Carranza at the
time of the expulsion of the religious orders, settled in the
Fernando Valley, has been propped and shored into a
semblance of its former self. But the local painter and
local carpenter have done their best to disguise this bless-
ing. The original grill-work of wrought iron, to be sure,
still covers the windows and the old red tile still brightens
the roof, but the rich brown age-colored arches and pillars
are now daubed with a plaster of staring white and the
quaint irregular monastic rooms within have been ham-
mered into straight and tenement form.

If only those rooms could talk, what tales they have
to tell!

CHAPTER VI

TO SAN BUENAVENTURA AND THE STRANGE
TALE OF THE FOUR CATS

If Still inclined to literally trail the historic footsteps
of the old Padres, a few miles of the highway already
traveled must be retraced — back through Van Nuys to
Sherman Way — then on to El Camino Real de San Buena-
ventura; another sonorous mouthful of a name, com-
pressed by modern impatient lips into Ventura Road.
Close alongside the Santa Monica Mountains it runs,
mostly level and straight-away, for the "Master Builder"
has fashioned these mountains with a nearly unbroken
front, only twice stretching out a rocky arm, over which
the road finds its way without effort.

The summit of Conejo Pass, the higher of the two,
fails to give the promised "unrivalled view." California
always appears to be envious of praise bestowed on
beauties elsewhere and tries to enhance the charms of her
own wonderful gifts of nature by extravagant exaggera-
tion, whose children are inevitably Disappointment and
Disenchantment. Here one Is on the edge of a mountain
wall encircling one of the sweetest and most fertile valleys

61

62 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

in California — the one Sydney Smith must have had in
mind when he wrote; "Tickle her with a hoe and she will
laugh with a harvest." At your feet far below unrolls a
wonderous panorama, a series of views that carries the
eye almost to Ventura — quite colorful enough without
the too highly colored description "unrivalled." A four-
mile descent of easy loops offers not the slightest difficulty,
though a few years back an illogical county law pro-
nounced it dangerous and four miles an hour the extreme
of speed.

But once on the level you rapidly approach Camarillo,
the site of a one-time rancheria, belonging to the pioneer
Spanish family of that name, whose descendants still own
thousands of neighboring acres — all devoted to beans-,
with a crop so valuable (and properly so when one re-
members that beans is derived from the French "biens"
— ^property, money), that they have just erected a slightly
mission-like church in thank offering for this splendid
material prosperity. It is explained by some writer that
the enormous bean profit in California is due to the beans
requiring little labor — no poling as in the East; for suc-
cumbing to the dreamy atmosphere they show no desire
to climb but just lie lazily along the ground.

Largely to prove an independence of spirit, the next
town. El Rio, openly scorn's beans, swearing allegiance to
beets, and they'll show you, if you are interested, seven
beets that weight five hundred pounds! But once

nil, MlNSlON OF SAN BUENAVKMIRA

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 63

across the Santa Clara River such gross materialism is
left behind and you behold the land of romanticism —
Montavalo — honoring the Spanish author in whose novel
the name "California" first appears.

And his imagination is so Californian!

"Be it known unto you that at the right hand of the
Indies Is an Island formed of the largest rocks known and
called California. It Is very near Terrestrial Paradise.
This Island is Inhabited by dark women of great strength
and great, warm hearts. They have many ships In which
they make excursions to other countries where they catch
men whom they carry away and subsequently kill.
When children are born only the females are preserved.
There are many griffins on the island which the women
bring up with such skill that they do them no harm, but
attack any man reckl'ess enough to enter the island. The
griffins generally eat the man, but when their appetite
is sated they fly into the air with them, letting them fall
from great heights, kiHing them instantly!"

By the time one has finished reading this naive descrip-
tion of "women with great warm hearts" you find your-
self in front of the Mission San Buenaventura, seventy-
one miles from Los Angeles.

SAN BUENAVENTURA

Padre Francisco Uria rose hastily from beside the
rude leather cot where, immediately after administering

64 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

extreme unction, he had knelt in contrite prayer. In his
first rebellion at what seemed God's desertion he had
altogether forgotten that it was his bounden duty, having
watched the last breath of a dying brother, to toll the
bell, hanging just outside the chapel door, that the angels
might know another spirit was on its way, and made
ready for the home-coming.

Ave Regina Coelorum!

The sad notes echoed and re-echoed through the silent
corridors. Each solemn stroke brought forth from within
the heart of Father Uria an answering chord of loneliness,
as more fully and vividly than ever before he realized
that his brother Franciscan, who had labored with him
side by side for eleven long years, had now left him to
labor alone, with no companion other than the brutish,
ignorant savage.

But one of these self-same ignorant, brutish neophytes
revealed a discerning sympathy seldom to be found
amidst so-called higher civilization. Instinctively that
faithful old Indian servant appreciated that his master
was now without companionship; without the "good com-
pany and good discourse that are the very sinews of
virtue"; without the quiet enduring affection of friend-
ship— and slowly there formed in that primitive mind,
versed in the wisdom of the woods and the wilderness, a
plan to bring consolation.

At dusk he stole outside the adobe church walls,

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 65

down thro.ugh th.e cornfields that lay between the Mis-
sion and the sea, as amongst the high-tasseled maize,
showing brown and green above his head, he would soon
be lost to view. Concealed in the rough of the grain,
where it had crept so close to the surf that every flood-tide
watered its roots, he found his boat just as he had left
it the morning before. Silently shoving into the breakers,
he paddled out to the Spanish vessel moored within hail-
ing distance and no sooner alongside than he disappeared
into the shadows of the forward hatchway, only to as
quickly rfeappear, clutching beneath his scrape the stolen
treasure for which he had come.

Back again through the cornfields and up to the barred
windows of his master's sleeping room without discovery.
Peeping within and finding to his joy that it was still
empty, he hurriedly slipped through the gate and along
the corridor until he reached the Padre's door, which he
stealthily opened; then emptying the contents of his
basket on the bed, he vanished Into the darkness.

On the bed lay four little kittens!

This savage knew that when men went Into the wilder-
ness and loneliness they cherished a cat more than any
other living creature, and so Intimate becamiC the two
that almost human friendship and affection sprang up
between them. And so It was with Father Uria. When,
a few moments later, entering his desolate room, and
discovering four little strangers in possession of his bed.

66 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

he found that it was impossible to resist the appeal of
these God-sent "fuzzy lumps of playfulness" and took
them to his heart once and for all.

As a conscientious priest, he at once baptized them;
naming the tawny-orange two, descendants of Egypt,
after his favorite saints — ^Maria de la Concepion and de
los Dolores — Concha and Lola; the third, sandy and short-
haired, in honor of Saint Joseph — ^Pepito; and then,
being above all a true Franciscan, he called the fourth,
Frasquito. Upon him, dressed in aristocratic suit of
tortoise-shell he lavished the greatest affection, though
all were admitted to the same intimacy. To see one was
to see five — four cats and a man. All five ate together,
walked together and snoozed together. But the first
to awake was always Frasquito, and in proof of the truth
of the Chinese legend that cats are living clocks, he awoke
every morning at just five forty-five, never varying a
single minute. Immediately he would jump up on the
bed, crawl to the pillow and gaze steadfastly into the
face of the Padre. If that failed to awaken him a gentle
poke in the cheek with the most velvety of paws was sure
to do so. At once with tender touch, electric with sym-
pathy, the Padre would stroke Frasquito, thus answering
the questioning in those luminous yellow eyes.

Father Uria always contended that the gift of speech
had not been denied these companions of his, but rather
that the defect lay within himself, in not altogether under-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 67
Standing their language. There could be no doubt, he
claimed, but that they talked and reasoned with one
another, apparently actuated by human thoughts and
impulses. Finally he came to believe that they were able
to understand him and in his hours of leisure he con-
versed with them upon every conceivable subject, though
principally instructing them in the mysteries of religion;
carefully defining the difference between right and wrong,
just as he would do with his often less intelligent Indian
pupils. If their talk in the late afternoon was interrupted
by the Angelus, all five would kneel down at their has-
socks. Concha, Lola, Pepito and Frasquito remaining
with devoutly clasped paws until the master arose from
his prayers.

So all the greater was the shock when the knowledge
was forced upon him that environment and priestly
teaching were not as influential as original sin. Quiet,
orderly Concha began to exhibit a desire to roam, making
it clear that she was weary of having to account for all
her days and being locked up at night. Finally she dis-
appeared altogether until one sad Sunday morning Padre
Uria found her a picture of innocent contentment, beam-
ing in rapture on six newly-born infants at her breast.
It was scandalous, if natural, and the Padre hastened to
remove this "harvest of shame," comforting himself with
the thought that like all kinds of people, there are all
kinds of cats, worthy and unworthy.

68 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Though always to be seen with Concha, Lola, Pepito
and Frasquito the good Padre was by no means abso-
lutely cut off from human white companionship. Travel-
ers were not infrequent on El Camino .Real which began
at San Diego and ended at Sonoma, and as it was without
inns or taverns, wanderers along this road, whatever their
nation or creed, always made the missions their stopping
place and for the Padres a multitude of friends.

Padre Uria came forth once to meet a traveler down
this road; stretching out his hand in greeting. As soon
as dismounted, a drink of aguardiente was offered him,
immediately followed by the usual queries dictated by
Spanish etiquette: the stranger's name, his occupation
and the object of his travel; the Padre the meanwhile
giving all the facts about himself, in which the stranger
might be interested.

Then with a hearty "Gusta Usted comer con migo,"
he was escorted into the Refectory, where the evening
meal was promptly spread.

Just as they were ready to be seated, the door flew
open and in trooped Concha, Lola, Pepito and Frasquito
— Frasquito having sprung to the catch, where his weight
bearing down on the thumb-piece allowed the door to
open. Each went to his or her own particular place,
patiently waiting to be served; for the Padre had taught
them that to snatch food was gluttinous and as one of
the seven deadly sins — forbidden.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 69
During the long talk that ensued, Frasquito and the
others seems all attention, apparently absorbing every
word. Each time Father Uria would turn, asking if they
understood, their eyes would half close and their small
pink mouths open, showing little white teeth in a genuine
smile of appreciation.

Years rolled by and the time finally came for Father
Uria to lay down his burden. Gathered about him were
the faithful four. According to competent witnesses, as
soon as the Padre breathed his last, Frasquito, the Padre's
favorite, stalked out into the corridor, up to the chapel
where hung the bell of mourning, when leaping to the rope
he swung himself backward and forward, tolling out to
the angels the advent of another spirit, as was the custom
with the Franciscans, after whom he had been baptized.

Giovanni de Fidenza, born in 1221, was a celebrated
writer and teacher of mystic theology. So great an
authority in so abstruse and remote a subject should by
rights have been tall, spare and austere. Not so Giovanni,
who was short, round and rosy, with so cheery a person-
ality that Saint Francis, meeting him on the street by
chance, exclaimed "O Buona Ventura!" As Buenaven-
tura he became one of the great saints in the seraphic
family of St. Francis, all of whom according to mystic
theology are six winged angels, continuously in the pres-
ence of God and praising him. He also became patron

70 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

of this mission. A bit of nepotism (don't you think?)
to draw from this one seraphic family all the patron saints
of California! Long before the original expedition even
started, the Governor General and Father Serra decreed
that the third mission should have the name of San
Buenaventura, and be situated half-way between one In
the port of San Diego and one In that of Monterey,
selecting approximately the present sites from a map
drawn by Viscaino, on one of his earlier voyages. The
Governor General, so the records relate, was particularly
interested In the Mission Buenaventura, personally
superintending the packing of all its goods, among which
the records show were red pepper, garlic and "burn-the-
intestines spices," foreshadowing, it must be, that this
mission was to have the reputation of caring better for
the inner man than any other mission on the coast. But
as always, God disposes where man proposes, and Instead
of being the third it was the ninth foundation, the last
to be founded by Serra before his death. It was not
until March 31, 1782, that the venerable Father Presi-
dente blessed and took possession of the ground, raising
on the highest hill In the neighborhood a rough-hewn
cross which was to serve a two-fold purpose: to be a guide
for the souls of the faithful as well as for the ships, bringing
supplies to the mission. When the ravages of time made
it necessary, other crosses were raised on the same hill,
in the same spot, where you'll find one to-day.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 7 i

To build a church of stone and brick, with walls six
feet thick, when there were only two priests who had any
knowledge of construction, and they were obliged to
instruct the Indian workers in every branch of manual
labor, seems an impossibility, but there the church stands
to-day in proof that all things are possible. To decorate
the interior a beautiful high altar was brought from
Mexico; pictures were shipped from Peru, and from Spain
came an exquisitely carved pulpit which the hand of mis-
taken progress has now swept away. The gardens within
the huge quadrangle then surrounding the greater part of
the present town were visions of wealth and beauty, and
wealth seems the only word to apply when one garden
produces apples, peaches, pears, plums, oranges, figs,
pomegranates, grapes, cocoanuts, sugar-cane and bananas.
Perhaps the Padres didn't have such a hard time after
all! By 1800 San Buenaventura had the largest crops
of any of the missions, but it suffered with the rest, and
suffered in the same old way — practical annihilation of a
life that was never to be again. During the "deadly con-
flicts" of 1838 Carrillos forces were entrenched within
the mission. Cannonading lasted two long days and one
man and a mule were killed. The valor of the besieged
was kept up only by mission wine and gave out when the
wine gave out. In 1845 it became a regular Parish church
and was renovated out of all historic association to make
way for the spirit of smug modernity. Of course, the

72 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

materialists argue that to the sentimentaHst "even dust
becomes a golden cloud when seen through memory's
eyes, and things crude and common are glorified by the
hand of time and become sweet and dear through the
lapse of years."

CHAPTER VII

THE HIGHWAY CALLED RINCON AND THE BEAUTIFUL
GARDENS OF SANTA BARBARA

Seascape, not landscape, beautifies the thlrty-two-
mlle drive between Mission San Buenaventura and Mis-
sion Santa Barbara — one of the dozen famous sea-drives
of CaHfornia.

Between thickets of shrub and under branches of
live oak, along the bank bordering the ocean, once lay
an Indian trail over which would slip sheets of quarrel-
ing foam, erasing all trace of the original path. Now,
skirting the sea, is a macadam boulevard, venturesome
enough to thrust its way, supported on wooden piles,
right over the ocean itself, where the noisy breakers,
tumbling on the beach beneath, deaden the pulsations
of your motor. It is called Rincon, which Spaniards
tell us means "inside corner," having an advantage over
all other roads, just like the "inside track" on a race
course, and as far as sea scenery goes, it quite justifies
the name.

The official starting point of this road is, as in all

73

74 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

country towns, the Post Office — the site of the original
postal service, established in 1861, when the genial post-
master, upon the arrival of mail (then not very heavy)
would safely tuck it away in the spacious crown of his
sombrero and begin a round of friendly calls upon those
for whom he had letters. Always welcome and known
to everyone, the letters of course were read to him, and
by the end of his jaunt he acquired a splendid budget
of gossip which later he could tittle-tattle from house
to house.

From the post office the Rincon runs alongside the
old mission orchards, where once were three hundred
olive trees, parents to all California olives. It then
crosses the flats of the Ventura River, which Cabrillo
called El Pueblo de las Canoas — the Village of Canoes —
because of the large number of canoes always moored
there. They were made of pine boards tied together and
plastered with asphaltum taken from the very pits that
later made Ventura the pioneer in oil production.

For almost twenty miles you drive to an accompani-
ment of "the hammer of the surf." Dotting the beach
are little shanties between which stretch strings of chillies,
telling the nationality of their owners. The purity of
the atmosphere is so wonderful that two miles never
look more than a quarter of one — and this, please under-
stand, is not the assertion of some Callfornian who is
always "an enthusiast" with a predisposition to stretch

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 75
the truth, but that of an honest saunterer. Then, to
quote Cobb, if you are as lucky as the writer, across
the blue sky will be drifting a hundred fleecy clouds,
one behind the other, like wooly white sheep grazing in
the meadows of the firmament.

Carpentaria, the first town of size, and so called by
the Spanish explorers from a sort of carpenter shop where
the Indians were to be seen building canoes, Is noted
for its once famous grapevine, now dead. It is described
as having been the largest in the world, its trunk measur-
ing ten feet in girth, one bunch of grapes weighing twelve
pounds, with a total crop from the one vine of fourteen
tons. Being dead, there Is no possible way of disproving
this, so why not accept it smilingly.''

Five miles beyond is Summerland, vulgarized into
"Smellyland," the city of petroleum, where derricks, not
content to remain on shore, wander far out to sea, pump-
ing the oil from beneath the ocean bottom.

Then our road runs through aristocratic Montecito
into the town of Santa Barbara, where two miles back
from the water's edge, on the foothills of the Santa Ines
Mountains, stands the Mission.

SANTA BARBARA

Painfully, Father Gonzales straightens up from the
flower bed over which he had been bending for hours,
and hobbles down to the unshaded corner of the court,

76 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
where the rays of the blazing sun are far from Inviting
too long companionship, but where there hangs against
the church wall a cross-shaped dial with the inscription
"My time is in Thy hands, O God."

A very, very old man is Father Gonzales, feeble and
bent with work. For nearly fifty years he has labored
in the mission garden and been in sole charge there —
every Franciscan has to choose some particular life work.
To-day, more than ever, "touched by the frost of age,"
he longs for the signal that his day's work is done, and
even as he seeks at the dial for the mark of the sun's
shadow, the chimes ring out from the twin towers above,
telling the little world without that the time has come
for rest and for raising its heart to heaven.

Soon Father Gonzales is seated somewhat towards the
sunny end of a wooden bench, alongside an ancient crony
with whom he begins to reminisce about the past — recall-
ing a life of long ago from which Time has faded all the
harsher lines and darker shadows. Around and around
the cloisters whose many arches are outlined by climbing
roses or tumbling clematis, silently glide the younger
Padres, missal and rosary in hand, a white cord about
their waists, showing sharply against the brown garb,
vividly proclaiming that the bodies are held in subjection
to the spirit. Still others wander along familiar paths
hidden behind adobe walls where clambering flowers

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CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 77

"spill their musky odor." And the musical drip of the
fountain is the only sound to be heard.

It is a home of peace, well beyond tne confines of
the busy, weary world. An understanding solitude for
whomsoever comes to seek its quiet. Hardlj a mood
known to man for which this garden has not some solace
or inspiration, though its full secret may not be known
except to the chosen. Little wonder that, since Mother
Eve through her fatal curiosity brought the curse of
expulsion from Eden, the Franciscans do not subject
other women to similar temptation by allowing them to
enter. By Papal authority the garden is forever barred.

For fifty years no hand but that of Father Gonzales
had nurtured and cherished the "thousand blossoms" in
this garden of soul-rest. Foreign cacti of curious shapes
and odd formation are bed-fellows with gentle stay-at-
home Candy-tufts, Bac.helor Buttons, Snapdragons, Lark-
spurs, Marigolds and Poppies. Palms whose soft plumes
wave gently with every breath of wind, permitting Aeolus
to pick celestial music from the strings of their undulat-
ing branches, raise their heads amidst lilies, hyacinths,
narcissus and anemones. Travelling ferns whose every
leaf bears "an autograph of God" wander at will, for
the sake of the roots upon which John the Baptist was
said to have lived during his journey in the wilderness.
Pushing vines penetrate the cracks and crevices produced

IS CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

by the summer-time warping in the adobe walls. All
combining to form a garden of spiritual repose, of still-
ness, peace, refreshment and delight.

The plants and flowers, to be sure, grew and blos-
somed lavishly, but not without coaxing care and constant
protection from the sun's rays and frosts of the nights;
for plants and flowers must be loved and cared for each
day, even though all cannot be loved with equal warmth.
While it is possible to have a wholesome liking for some,
a deep esteem for others, there are always, as Swinburne
puts it, "unresponsive flower souls."

This con'stant care, this charm of daily companion-
ship, the singing of the birds, the whizz of the hummers
in their retreat beneath the honeysuckle, all conduced
to a thoughtful and tender disposition, carrying in its
wake a deep sympathetic insight into all the mysteries
of plant-life until at last Father Gonzales attained the
power of visualizing human faces, filled with the sweet-
ness of remembrance, that the love-trained eye does find
in pansies, and was able to hear the soft whispers of the
tiny folk that live in flower cups. He even grew to know
the appointed moment when the hare-bell swaying on its
stalk, rings out its joyful message and the exact hour
when the rose opens its crimson beauty to peep for the
first time into a new world. He became as the Persians
of yore, who gather before a flower in blossom, spread
their rugs and pray before it.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 79

If ever man caught the soul of flowers it was Father
Gonzales.

But the time came as It must come to all, when his
garden knew him no more. Advancing across the court
was seen the Father Superior, arrayed in priestly robes,
with the burse containing the golden pyx hanging upon
his breast, within the pyx the holy Eucharist. He stops
at the largest room facing the Inner court — the room
of Father Gonzales. Entering, he Incenses In the form
of a cross his dying friend, saying: '^Ecce angus Dei.^'
After confessing him, and with the holy Eucharist pre-
paring him for passage to eternal glory and happiness,
he administers extreme unction, the sacrament for the
five senses — the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth and hands;
for the struggle to be maintained with the devil is now
more formidable than ever, and a special endowment of
heaven-sent grace is necessary for final victory. As the
soul of Father Gonzales leaves its mortal home, the
Father Superior recites: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I
commend thy spirit. Mother of Mercy do thou protect
him from the enemy, and receive him at the hour of his
death." Dressed in full ecclesiastical costume, he is
borne to the church where he is placed, head to the
altar, facing his people. Then Is intoned the beautiful
"Come to his assistance ye Saints of the God; Come to
meet him ye Angels of the Lord."

By special dispensation, the body is not taken to the

80 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

vault where the Franciscan dead are generally placed,
lengthwise like books in a library, but out Into the beauti-
ful garden amidst a group of Madonna lilies. With
lighted candles in hand, emblematic of the Children of
Light, the Fathers make the rounds of the coffin, asking
the holy angels to receive and bear him heavenward.

As the body Is lowered into the ground and "In
Paradisum" is chanted, every flower within the garden,
bending on its stalk, bows its head In sorrow for the
beloved comrade lost to them for evermore. And tradi-
tion asserts that the following morning still found the
flowers in that same attitude of mourning.

Myth, legend and superstition are so woven Into the
warp of early secular history that to disentangle the
threads of actual truth is ordinarily difficult, if not
impossible. The chronicler of ''The Spanish Voyagers"
asserts that VIscaIno never realy landed at Santa Bar-
bara, but was 'frightened away. No sooner had he cast
anchor In the outer harbor, than friendly Indians came
out In their canoes, bidding him welcome, and when
they discovered that none of the sailors had brought
wives, they immediately offered, as proof of their good
intentions and native hospitality, five Indian women for
each sailor, and for VIscaIno ten! Now, whether this
was not a sufficient Inducement, or whether It was a

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 81

case of conscience, the chronicler sayeth not — merely
adding: "Viscaino at once sailed away!"

In seeming contradiction, the diary of the devout
priest who compiled maps of the Viscaino exploration
and was entrusted with the duty of naming all localities,
tells of their entrance Into the "channel," on December
4, 1603, the Feast Day of Santa Barbara, and, as always,
being moved by religious sentiment to dedicate each
place with the name of the saint whose festival occurred
on the day of discovery, he headed his description of this
site with the name "Santa Barbara." Though no direct
reference Is made to an actual landing, there follows
a description Impossible from long range.

Sacred history of these times, however, thanks to
the unity of the Church, Is never at variance, and all
accounts of the sainted Barbara agree to the most minute
detail. She was born In Asia, early in the Third Century,
endowed with extraordinary beauty and gifted with sur-
prising Intelligence. Her father was a most obstinate
Idolater, but extremely fond of his only child, and wish-
ing to retain all her affections, resolved to separate her
from intercourse with society. To this end he fitted up
apartments In a very high tower, where he placed her
with a number of servants, and gave her as Instructors
a few old men of great wisdom. From one she heard of
a Christian teacher who was considered the most learned

82 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

of his age, and finding means to communicate with him,
was instructed in the mysteries of the faith, embraced
Christianity and was baptized. She was then verging
on her nineteenth year, and her father resolved that she
should leave the tower and mix in society, in the hopes
of winning her from her sacrilegious ideas. On entering
her home she found it filled with pagan idols. Full of
indignation, she asked the good of these ridiculous pup-
pets. "Is it possible that a man of your education can
call these works of man gods? No, my dear father, there
is only one God." Dio, her father, enraged, gave her
up to be persecuted nc a Christian, but the judge, finding
she could not be induced to change her belief, ordered
her beheaded, and her father, as a propitiation to his
gods, asked to be her executioner. As he entered the
prison door he was struck by a flash of fire from heaven.
Barbara nevertheless soon died a martyr to her faith, at
the hands of another.

At the Church of All Saints, in Rome, you may still
be shown the head of Saint Barbara, and if not too miserly
you will be told the story of her executioner; how he
demanded as payment the privilege to look upon the
extraordinary beauty of her body. But as he was un-
winding the last covering, a thick cloud enveloped her,
hiding her from sight, and when it faded away, the man
was found dead beside her bier.

Most fittingly, December 4th — the Feast Day of

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 83

Santa Barbara — was chosen for the foundation of the
Mission. This was in 1786 — one hundred and eighty-
three years after Its discovery by VIscalno. In good
time a beautiful church and a long square of low build-
ings, with arched corridors arose on the heights back of
the town, facing the sea, so that the morning's first rays
would flash full upon the facade, while at even-time they
would linger late on the western walls — a heavenly bene-
diction.

The Indians, as Viscaino had earlier discovered, were
extremely friendly and gathered about the mission in
great numbers, accepting the teaching of the Padres —
in such numbers that it became necessary to enlarge
the church in 1793, which, damaged :n el ano temblore,
was rebuilt during 1815 — ^just as it stands to-day. The
same general plan of construction Wc^is followed as at all
the other missions, the only distinctive feature being
the twin towers — not found elsewhere. Here the living
rooms of the Padres all face the inner garden, closing it
to womankind, though some years ago two of them, by
invoking the mediaeval Spanish law which declared no
law was valid for those of royal blood, did gain admittance
and satisfied their vanity. In front of the mission the
ancient fountain continues to spout forth its refreshing
stream, though its once delicate tracery has almost dis-
appeared, rubbed away by the constant friction of the
water line. Just below is the old stone washing tank

84 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

that became the "Exchange Place" of gossip, bandied
to and from between the rubbing and scrubbing of wash-
ing day.

The little cemetery, according to the records, con-
tains thousands of graves dug one on top of the other,
all happily covered to-day by a charitable blanket of
roses and trailing vines, though marring the picture is
a crumbling vault still in use, where the dead Padres
are placed like books on a shelf, with niches already
prepared, even to the name and Inscription, for the
living. There you can read the continued story of a
devoted band which never surrendered. Secularization
they refused to accept; expelled, they refused to obey.
Alone, of all the California missionaries, they clung to
their post. With tonsured head, sandaled and girdled,
they still live as they lived of old, and with a beautiful
faith they keep tolling the Angelus, hoping for the day
when the busy world will stop and raise its heart to God.

CHAPTER VIII

TELLING OF THE JOURNEY TO SANTA INES
AND WHAT ONE FINDS THERE

One of August's scorching winds sweeps the city —
Nature's house-cleaning, and, like other house-cleanings,
somewhat disagreeable in the process. But the sparkling
atmosphere, unclouded sky and brilliant sun dispose the
ordinarily healthy man — and woman — to submerge all
present inconvenience in pleasurable anticipation.

The road strikes towards the hills, and if you look
up to the heights with the eyes of faith, you may see the
Mountain Maid. As the legend runs: Back in pastoral
times the valley suffered from a prolonged drought, so
severe that the Mission Fathers set a week of prayer,
asking relief of their patron saint. One night a heavy
rain refreshed the valley, and in the morning, looking
out upon the foothills, the Padres discovered a likeness
of St. Barbara. The rain in washing away the face of
the rock had etched the portrait of the Mountain Maid.
The face of the rock has certainly been denuded of its
covering of chaparral and almost any time between four

85

86 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

in the afternoon and sunset may be seen the figure of
a woman, the lower part of her draperies lost in the mist.
Slipped about her shoulders is the white cape of the
sisterhood, with broad band across her brow In one
hand she holds a cornucopia from which flowers appear
to be showering upon the valley, a reminder that "help
Cometh from the hills."

For many years thereafter came rain a-plenty, a.nd
the road even now skirts the huge reservoir built by the
Padres at that time, so well constructed that it is used
to-day to supply the city of Santa Barbara.

Much like a private park is the seven miles between
Goleta and Santa Barbara. The way bordered on both
sides with luxuriant trees, bowing so obsequiously one to
the other that their heads, touching, form an arch which
completely veils the Saunterers from the heat of the sun.
Through the heavy branches one can dimly see velvety
oak-studded meadows, and in. the foothill background
rambling bungalows, the homes of lovers of wide fields
and big open spaces. The village of Goleta is nothing
but a telephone booth, a tumbledown blacksmith shop
and a corner grocery, but to the Saunterers it is another
station on the road of experience, and all things must be
experienced to be truly understood.

Three roads go to Santa Ines, by as many passes —
San Marcus, Refugio and Gavioto — and here at Goleta
is the entrance to the beautiful San Marcus pass. Which

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 87

of the three roads was the chosen route of the early-
Padres is irtiposslble to state with deiiniteness. The
builders of El Camino Real claim Gavioto, basing their
claim upon Father Crespi's diary, written during the
expedition in search of Monterey under Don Gasper de
Portola in 1769, in which mention is made of a pass
called Gavioto, in commemoration of the wonderful
marksmanship of one of the soldier-guards, who while
climbing the pass fired off his old flintlock musket and,
apparently to the amazement of the chronicler, actually
killed a gull (gavioto).

Tradition, however, leans strongly to San Marcus
pass which, despite a multitude of corners, sometimes
dangerous for the modern motor, offers no difficulties to
the burro or the man on foot. Whether the necessary
climb of 2,500 feet offsets the shorter distance is a matter
for argument, though there can be no argument but that
the magnificent scenery and far-reaching panoramas
justify the climb. However, it is Gavioto for the Saun-
terers, and the road keeps to the level and heads for the
ocean where, as it approaches Naples, a church of yellow-
ish stone, perched on a hilltop by the sea, looms into
view, as unlike Italy's churches as this American Naples
is unlike the Queen City of the Mediterranean. It stands
there solitary and deserted, not a house in sight, sym-
bolizing the ever-present vanity of man. It might be
termed an Irish Bull, for it was built by the first Irish-

88 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

man who landed in California, characteristically listed on
the local records as "An Englishman, native of Ireland,
whose parents live in Boston."

For miles one follows every undulation of the shore,
running between the deep blue ocean and the green foot-
hills of the Santa Ines mountains, a quiet, dreamy
country, so fairylike in its unreality that it starts bub-
bling within the man an absurd sentimental fervor — a
quality, fortunately, according to Mencken, non-existent
in women.

Perhaps five miles beyond is the Rancho de Nuestra
Senora del Refugio — the refuge in olden days for many
a smuggling adventurer. Here zigzagging up the moun-
tain flank is the trail over Refugio pass, crawling in and
out among foothills and finally scaling the rocky heights,
Santa Ines peak being close to five thousand feet high.
But the Gavioto road still follows the ocean through
many acres of olive trees and amidst great groves of
eucalyptus whose trunks show not a vestige of bark,
whitened by the hand of age. They are said to be the
oldest trees of the kind in California.

Nearing Gavioto, the foothills creep down to the
water's edge, elbowing the road away from the ocean
front, forcing it to turn almost at right angles into a
winding, high-walled, romantic pass — if one's eyes are
to be believed, the retreat for many a philandering
motorist.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 89

Something of an effort to turn from this broad,
smooth boulevard into the dusty trail lost to view amid
scrubby hills, but this way leads to the mission, and on
the edge of the solitary plain, away from the railroads
and the hum of cities, stands a lasting monument to
Saint Agnes. .

SANTA INES

One late afternoon, in the spring of 1824, Father
Peblos and, his Indian pupil, Jesu, were seated in the
guest room of the Mission Santa Ines, absorbed in study.

Though seated and leaning well over his book of
vellum, it was still easy to see that Jesu was of unusual
height, even, for an Indian", and endowed to an extra-
ordinary degree with all the best physical traits of his
stalwart race. A gentleness of manner and a natural
sweetness of disposition, so often to be seen In physically
big men, had so endeared him to Father Peblos that the
good padre gladly spared from his well-filled day an hour
o^ two of instruction, teaching Jesu in the subjects that
might best fit him to become a leader and a guide among
his own people.

Years had passed since Jesu as a boy had timidly
entered this room, now more homelike than the home of
his earthly parents. The floor Is still covered with dull
red tile, the walls are still painted in raw umber and
hung with pictures of the saints, the ceiling studded with

90 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

rough-hewn beams held in place by thongs of hide. The
windows, on one side, open into a cloistered court always
filled with flowers and fruit trees; on the other side they
face a large enclosure of brick, which is the theater of
a battling, laughing, scolding throng on every wash-day.
This was home never to be forgotten, never to be left.
How little does one know what the future holds in store!

In an adjoining room the musicians, attached to the
choir, were practising. The violin, guitar, flute and
bass-viol blended in a plaintive note — rather Hawaiian —
not sufhciently loud to prevent study, but nevertheless
drowning all outside noises, and both Father Peblos and
Jesu looked up in surprise when a company of soldiers
appeared at the doorway. As soon as the sergeant had
detached himself from his troops he was seen to be
carrying something wound in cloth which, undoing, he
cast upon the floor, where it struck with sickening thud,
rolling close to the feet of Jesu.

Seeking some runaway neophytes, the soldiers had
traced them to a distant rancheria, whose owner chief,
upon refusal to give them up, was killed and his head
cut off in true Conquistadore fashion. It was this head
that the sergeant threw upon the floor — and it was the
head of the father of Jesu.

As horror-stricken Jesu stared at the bloody object
that seemed almost to cling to him for protection, his
veneer of civilization dropped away as a garment that

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 91

had come untied. The once gentle, sad eyes grew bitter
with hate and desire for revenge. In one moment the
labor of years was undone. The educated Indian lapsed
into savagery, mentally donning his war paint and plan-
ning that rebellion which came so near to wrecking the
Mission Purisima, as well as Santa Ines.

But without a word Jesu left the room.

So it was that scarcely six weeks later Jesu at the
head of a yelling mob of more than a thousand savages
surrounded the mission and laid seige to the cloisters
in which were imprisoned the priests and that handful
of Indians who still remained faithful, Jesu having lured
most of the neophytes away by turning agsinst the
priests the very mental weapons forged for him by
Father Peblos during the many months of loving labor
and study. He played upon the neophytes' fears and
superstitions, just as the priests themselves were accus-
tomed to do, reporting to his fellow-Christians that he
had a dream in which Chupu (the Indian deity) had
appeared, warning him that all who had been baptized
would die before the new moon, unless they renounced
Christianity. Most of them fled secretly from the mis-
sion, bringing to Jesu beads and other votive offerings
and swearing allegiance to his cause. Soon after, by
his eloquence, Jesu wrought the hill tribes into a fury
of resentment. In full panoply of paint and feathers
they gathered about the camp fires, when Jesu, seizing

92 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

upon the war club, smeared with vermilion to symbolize
blood, sang his war song:

"Hear my voice, ye warlike birds,
I wish the vengeance of your claws."

One by one the assembled braves joined in the dance,
slowly circling about the fires, imitating in gesture and
movement the wild beasts and birds — this was their
pledge to battle.

The Indians depended for success entirely upon force
of numbers, while the hope of the little garrison defend-
ing the mission lay in the superstition and fear of fire-
arms, though, conforming to Franciscan custom, both
carbine and cannon were always fired without shot or
shell. Jesu, knowing that it was against the priests'
habit to take life even in battle, called together the
medicine men, who had long hated the priests as the
cause of their loss of power and influence. These Sha-
man,'^wearing their most powerful fetish — necklaces of
human fingers — seated themselves in the form of a circle;
in the center, with war pipe in hand, was Jesu, who, in
half-strangled gutturals, voiced his song of hate. The
reed flute wailed its plaintive note, and one of the medi-
cine men jumped into the ring, singing in time to the
tap of a drum; leaping about, first on one foot and then
on the other, brandishing his fists in the face of his
fellows, still seated, finally grasping one of them by the
hand he jerked him forcibly to his feet; he in turn clutched

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 93

another, the third a fourth, until all were on their feet,
yelling and gesticulating, casting spells upon the white
man's guns, rendering them harmless, and with their
magic driving death from the battlefield.

Later, when the guns and canon were fired, without
injury to anyone, the Indians were confirmed in the
power of their medicine men, and those who had sur-
rounded the mission and were creeping and wriggling
through the grass in a continually decreasing circle, freed
from all bodily fear, rose and rushed the convento and
church, setting them both on fire.

One of the priests, a burly, powerful friar, sandaled,
and clad In gown, girthed with the cord of St. Francis,
realizing that the time for decisive action had come,
seized a gun and rushed to the window.

"Well, Father," Ironically yelled Jesu, "Is that the
way you say Mass.^"'

"Yes, my son; here is the chalice," pointing to the
cartridge box, "and here is the crucifix," holding up his
carbine, "and here goes my benediction," pointing the
weapon, as he spoke, full at Jesu and pulling the trigger.

As the smoke drifted away and the Indians saw their
leader dead upon the ground, the old fear and supersti-
tion in the mysterious power of gunpowder revived, and
down they threw their weapons In submission, just In
time to prevent a complete destruction; for the flames
had eaten Into the church almost to the sacristy, where

94 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

the holy Eucharist was kept, and only by the help of the
Indians, who, fearing a retributive miracle and became
frightened, were the flames extinguished.

The marks of these fingers of fire are still visible on
the sacristy walls.

What an inspiring sight it must have been, that
strange procession in middle September, in the year
1804, wending its way over the rough road, hardly more
than a trail. At its head strode one of the oldest neo-
phytes, bearing the processional cross mounted on a long
staff; then two others with banners painted with like-
nesses of St. Agnes, followed by the rest of the neophytes
with candles in hand, after whom came the attendant
priest, next Commandant Carrillo, and last of all Presi-
dente Tapis. In sacred processions the head of the
church is always last; the next highest in dignity just
before him, and those lowest going first. It is emblematic
of the Christian journey — "that the last shall be first.''

After an all-day climb, the hardships lightened by a
frequent singing of the Gloria Laus, they arrived at the
spot selected by Governor Borica many months before
when on an exploring expedition among these mountains.
With a zeal that never flagged. Governor Borica was
always founding, on paper, pueblos and missions in honor
of his sovereigns; and, being a man of great piety, was
generally upheld by the church authorities.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 95

It was on September 17, 1808, that this Mission was
formally founded and dedicated to St. Agnes — Santa
Ines, martir y virgen, is held in the highest honor by the
primitive church, who constantly sing her praises and
extol her heroism under torture. After the promulgation
of the imperial edict against Christians, Agnes volun-
tarily declared herself one and suffered most steadfastly
the martyrdom of fire, giving scarcely a thought, how-
ever, to the frightful torture she had to endure, con-
cerning herself only with the unveiling of her body.
One young man who dared a lascivious glance fell to
the ground, stricken blind. Her monument, with a
lamb, the symbol of innocence, stands on the Via Nomen-
tane in Rome.

Aside from the brief Indian rebellion, the history of
this mission has been comparatively uneventful. The
earthquakes of el ano de los temblores, as everywhere,
caused a partial collapse here, making extensive repairs
necessary; and, in the rebuilding, three windows were
opened in the bell-tower, follo.wing the example set by
St. Barbara who, in her tower-home, insisted upon three
windows as only through the Trinity could the soul
receive light.

Secularization pounced down on this particular mis-
sion, in 1836, upon a somewhat unusual excuse. Governor
Chico, the most petty, tyrannical and quarrelsome of
California's governors, knowing that It was the custom

96 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

to announce the arrival of visiting priests by the joyful
ringing of church bells, was Incensed on one of his annual
rounds to be received In dead silence, and he reported
this lese majesty to the State Assembly, who Immediately
ordered secularization as the only proper punishment.
From such little vanities do great deeds spring. It was
little else than a ruin that was handed back to the
Church authorities in 1843, and the succeeding years of
abandonment completed the devastating work of man.

Then there appeared upon the scene a priest blessed
with the sacrificing, enduring spirit of the old Padres —
a man with such a beautiful childish faith that It trans-
formed God Into human form and made of him an ever-
present friend to whom he might turn for guidance In
the slightest difficulty. Every morning at sunrise he
would open the door that faced to the east, and just as
though hailing a comrade In the next field, might be
heard to say:

"Good morning, God; everything well this morning.?"
So with God as his only companion he started on
the very day of his arrival to explore the tumble-down
ruins of Santa Ines. Not a habitable room was to be
found in the entire mission, except for such occupants
as scorpions, tarantulas and poisonous spiders. He tells —
and Father Buckler, unlike the Incommunicative Fran-
ciscan monks, loves to talk — how his bed-fellow on that
first night was a six-foot snake. To-day that particular
snake, with many a scorpion and tarantula, are on view

'^V*-*^!

ife*.-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 97

in his room of exhibition where, with reverent care, have
been collected all sorts of relics dug from out the wreck-
age, even to hand-wrought nails, hinges and other metal
odds and ends. It took many a month just to clean
away the debris — months of discouragement at the little
progress made with one pair of hands. Then, one night,
there came a knock at his door and he opened it to a
tramp begging for a night's lodging. He had found
another pair of hands and knew now where to find still
others. In the years that followed, every hobo for miles
around who applied for help was directed to Father
Buckler. In his diary of vagabondia he keeps a record
of each of these wanderers. Their names, when they
give them, though most frequently the diary reads:
"Rambling Willie," 'XhiU-Blanes," "Travelling Tank,"
"Hand-out Harry," or "Bean-Booster," and, according
to this diary, two hundred came to the mission in one
year, many of them skillful mechanics, guttered by
drink. Alone, except for their help, he has straightened
the cracked and crumbling walls, roofed the church and
convento, and transformed a ruin into a sweet, livable
mission.;

When there were no funds to draw upon, Father
Buckler would invariably turn to God — "buttonhole
God" is his expression:

"I need money to-day, God," he would say in an
ordinary conversational tone; "you'll have to supply it."

He always got it, so he said, but, with a humorous

98 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

touch added, "only a third of what I asked for. Wonder
if it'll do any good to ask for three times what I need!"

This saving sense of humor is forever bubbling to the
fore. Note the sign on the mission grounds:

"To be permitted to view the interior of this mission
is an act of courtesy by the mission authorities. Don't
imagine we have to do so. There are no specific charges.
Visitors, however, should remember that our time is as
valuable as theirs, and consequently it is an impossibility
to expect to be admitted and escorted around without
some donation, which should never be less than twenty-
five cents."

Now and again humor gives way to beautiful religious
sentiment. On the door of the guest room we read:

"Guest, at thy knocking, my doors open to thee;

So do thou open to God knocking at thy heart."

Sometimes there enters a pathetic note. The church
bells bear the warning:

"One of these will be Thine,"
in allusion to the Catholic custom of tolling church bells
on the death of every parishioner.

Should you happily see Father Buckler as the setting
sun glorifies his poor shabby library, seated before the
organ, his fingers dreamily running over the keyboard,
you will recognize the kindly soul that has stamped these
lifeless walls of brick and mortar with a living sweetness
that will endure as long as the buildings stand.

CHAPTER IX

A DETOUR TO PURISIMA AND THE FABLE OF THE
MIRACULOUS HOUSE

Experience, wisest of all teachers, turns the Saun-
terers on to a quiet country road that stretches along the
foot of the mountains and leads into the shabby little
town of Los Olivos, the home of an old-fashioned inn,
hiding Its many virtues behind a vine-covered veranda.

Some memories are like oases In a vast desert of for-
getfulness, and this homely trout-fishing resort, away
from the noise and bustle of the world, seen for the
first time as evening's purple shadows gather at twilight,
is the fountain source of endless reminiscing.

A short distance away lies our old friend, El Camino
Real, playing hide and seek with the Coast Railway —
jumping the track back and forth — finally romping over
a rolling country of "dumpling" hills that are garnished
with bright splashes of green — mighty oaks dwarfed by
distance. The valley, to be sure. Is called Los Alamos,
meaning poplars, but an oak by any other name looks as
well.

99

100 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

The tiny hamlet of Harris marks the entrance to the
Purisima canyon, the direct route to the Mission La
Purisima and the Mission Santa Ines. Just why the
King's Highway, supposedly the old mission road, skips
these two missions is a question for the grafters and
political pets to answer, and perhaps they won't tell.

But from Santa Ines to La Purisima the entire twenty-
four miles is hemmed in by the Santa Rosa and Santa
Rita Hills, "full-bosomed and maternal — mothering the
valley" lying between and nursing into flower life its
thousand acres, blanketing them with a covering of sweet-
peas that upon maturity seed the less favored of other
lands; for here, beautifully situated on the bank of the
little Ines River with hills all about, except on the west
where the land slopes to the ocean, are the famous flower-
seed farms. This is Lompoc, which is an Indian word for
shell mounds — huge accumulations of sea shells, the only
sign left to mark the place of the early abodes of the
Indians who dearly loved sea food and left the remnants
of their feasts to fertilize the soil to an exceeding richness.

The city of Lompoc was founded as a temperance
colony, at a time when prohibition was fanaticism rather
than fashionable and resultantly never drew the crowds,
though it made heroic efforts to non-alcoholically warm
the stomach of the world with the fire of mustard, grown
in the only seed-mustard farms in the United States,
which "like streaks of sunshine playing hooky from

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 101

heaven" slash the valley with golden yellow.

Materialism now reigns in the old home of the Mission
La Purisima.

It is quite as difficult to imagine why the Mission of
the Immaculate Conception — La Mision de la Purisima
Concepcion de la Santisima Maria Madre de Dios y
Nuestra Senora — was founded on December 8, 1787, just
at the beginning of the rainy season when storms usually
make it impossible to construct permanent buildings, as
it is to accept the absurd theory that the Padres wished
to show the natives the superiority of their new brand of
witchcraft. More difficult to understand this winter-
haste, as more than two years had been allowed to elapse
since the authorities chose the inviting site on the bank
of the Santa Ines River, where wide spreading plains,
easy of irrigation, and a natural protection in the rugged
timbered hills rising in the rear made it one of the garden
spots of this old earth.

The Padres recognized that in converting the soul to
Christianity they must convert the body as well, and
always had a keen eye for good soil and water. They
knew that continuously spouting fountains amidst fruit-
laden trees would give the Indians a more exalted idea
of civilization than any sermon they could possibly
preach, and that ample stores of grain and meat would
speak more loudly than they against hill freedom and

102 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

frequent starvation, and with carnal lure would finally
bring the savages under the cloak of the church.

Be all this as It may, the rains fell and the winds blew
so persistently that It was a good four months before con-
struction work could even be started, and misfortune
seemed to dog the mission from the very start; fire, flood
and drought, scourges of grasshoppers and gophers, war
and epidemics are graven deep on Its annals. In signs of
suffering. But the Padres believed with Job "that God
would deliver them from death, and In war, from the
power of the sword." Strangely enough, one of these
very scourges, a trial even to this day, was the direct
outcome of the padres' civilizing influence; as before their
day gophers were an Indian tid-bit, and constant daily
indulgence In this choice dainty more than kept pace
with Nature's multiplication table, allowing the animals
no chance for dangerous increase.

Fire twice destroyed the mission buildings, forcing the
padres to erect temporary native huts by planting long
poles in the ground and plastering the tops together, the
sides being interwoven with weeds and covered with
adobe. The droughts were so severe that large herds of
cattle had to be driven from the plains into the sea as the
most merciful and speedy death. Smallpox ravaged the
little settlement, and floods destroyed the crops.

Then one day the earth trembled, the sea receded and
the natives in great alarm rushed to the mission, where

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 103

the padres met them, endeavoring to calm their fears by
chanting the Litany of the Virgin Mary, but in rapid
succession shock followed shock with increasing violence,
until the mission walls cracked and down rattled the
rafters and the stones. In panic the Indians sluffed off
their conversion robes, lapsing back into old idolatrous
practices. They prostrated themselves, turning to the
four points of the compass and called upon their god of
earthquakes for protection, but finding even him helpless
and seized with senseless panic, they fled. The learned
Father Payeras who, with the aid of interpreters, had
made in native idiom a complete catechism and manual
of confession, claimed that to the very last there was
always this curious mixture of paganism and Christianity.
Believing that the earthquake was their angry deity's
expression of displeasure, the neophytes of Purisima joined
with the tribes of Santa Ines and Santa Barbara in rebel-^
Hon against the Padres. In attacking the mission they
all covered themselves with twigs so as to look like bushes
and were able to approach near enough without dis-
covery, to send blazing arrows into the thatched roofs
and set them on fire. In the resultant confusion, by force
of numbers they managed to seize the cloistered buildings.
Once inside they cut holes in the adobe walls through
which to sling their spears. They erected palisade for-
tifications and dragged out of hiding a couple of rusty
cannon commonly used to make a noise on the Dias de

104 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Fiesta — really useless except to excite terror and called
by the superstitious "creators of thunder." Then they
planted in the ground all the available gunpowder, in
hopes that it would yield a further supply, for so miracu-
lous did these mysterious black grains appear to the
native mind that they believed it must possess the power
of reproduction. Everything, in fact, was done that
native ingenuity could devise in expectation of an attack,
but with only bows, spears and machetes they were no
match for the soldiers who, one hundred strong, were soon
sent to put down the revolt.

Many natives were killed in the fight that followed,
some were subsequently executed, for the sake of example,
and still others were sent into long imprisonment, and this,
despite all the pleadings of Father Payeras, who, though
captured when the garrison capitulated, was in no wise
molested, but on the contrary, treated with every mark
of respect. Irreverence for him would have been an
impiety and a sacrilege, there having been instilled in the
savage mind the profound belief that the priests were the
special messengers of God Himself.

The mission was unique in the absence of arches which
marked most of the Franciscan structures. Square
pillars supported the veranda along the front. The long
buildings backed up against the low hills, must have been
a picturesque sight — must have been, for to-day nothing
remains of the church, where one hundred and thirty

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 105

years ago numberless devout Indians were wont to daily
recite their Pater Nosters and Ave Marias.

THE MIRACULOUS LODGING
{From a book of Legends)

Father Junlpero, founder of the California Missions,
was on one of his errands of inspection and encourage-
ment. Friar Palou, of the Franciscans, was his com-
panion, and they were plodding over the unpathed
country toward Monterey, a full day's distance from the
settlements, when night came upon them. The air was
chill and there was no shelter, but their health was sound
and their courage warm.

"Well, brother," said the padre, "we can go no
farther to-night. God is good. He will not let us come
to harm. We have a loaf for supper and a cloak for a bed.
The stars are coming out and the snakes are going in.
We shall sleep in peace."

"We shall sleep in peace, brother," replied Palou.
"Let us say our prayers, for I am heavy with the day's
journey."

As if the flower-bells had tolled for vespers, the two
knelt on the hillside and offered up their thanks and their
petitions, asking that heaven would shelter them through
the dark hours by its loving kindness and bless their work
of spreading the gospel. As they arose from their knees
the keen eye of Father Junlpero caught a twinkle of light

106 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

a half mile ahead, and he gave a little cry of surprise.
"It must be white men," he said, "for it is not the red
light of an Indian fire. Yet who would have thought of
finding our people in this wilderness.^"

Friar Palou held aloof, and his face was pale. "It is
not our people," he said. "There is no house or cabin
all the way from San Juan to Monterey. Alas ! It is the
Devil who seeks us, far from our churches. He tempts
us with a hope of shelter when there is none."

"Be of better faith. We will go forward. Surely a
house may have been built here since we last crossed this
country."

"If your faith is strong I will follow, though I shall
keep tight hold on my crucifix, and constantly repeat the
Virgin's name."

A walk of a few minutes brought them to the light.
It was shining, white and calm, from the window of a
small, neat adobe house, all set about with flowers. The
door stood open and a sturdy figure of a man was dark
against the luminous interior as he peered into the night.
When the travelers had come in sight he showed no sur-
prise; on the contrary, he stepped from the doorway
with a grave courtesy, motioned them to enter, and said:
"Good friends, you are way-worn and hungry. Be
pleased to become our guests. You are welcome."

With hearty thanks for this unexpected hospitality
the missionaries walked into the plain but clean, sweet-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 107
smelling room. It was simply furnished and everything
was distinct in a soft yet brilliant light of candles. A
saintly faced, lovely lady greeted them and motioned them
to places at a table where a supper of bread, herbs, and
wine had been prepared, and a gentle sunny-haired boy
held his mother's hand, leaned his rosy cheek against her,
and smiled at them. The grave, kindly man who had
made them welcome — he with the brown face and hands,
the simple dress and honest way of an artisan — served
the food and drink, and all spoke of the work on which
the Fathers were traveling. It seemed to them as if on
earth there could be no other home like this, so sweet
and gracious were their hosts, so low and musical their
voices, so pure the air and feeling of the place. When
the repast was ended they would have begged to rest on
straw outside the house; but before they had put this
request into words an inner door had been thrown open
and they were ushered into a white chamber holding two
beds, warmly though daintily covered, and with pleasant
good-nights the family withdrew, leaving the Fathers to
their rest.

"We spoke truly when we said we should sleep in
peace," quothed Palou.

"It Is as If God had turned our steps here. Brother,
there is such peace in my soul as I have never felt before.
It Is well with the world, for heaven Is kind to men."

Tired though they were, they prayed long and

108 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

earnestly before they slept. In the morning, before day
had broken, they awoke without a call, were bidden to
another simple meal, and presently resumed their journey,
after many thanks to the man, the woman, and the child
for their goodness. They solemnly invoked the blessing
of God on all three, and bowed low and stood awhile in
silence when the family asked a blessing on them — silent
because they were strangely moved and thrilled.

They had been on their way not many minutes when
they encountered a muleteer of the country, who looked
at them curiously. "Good-day to your reverences," he
cried. "You look as happy and well fed and refreshed
with sleep as if you had breakfasted with his excellency
the governor and had laid on goosefeathers all night."

"We have fared notably," said Palou, "for we stopped
at the house yonder, and so kind a family can be found
nowhere else."

"At what house, pray.^* There is no house for miles
and miles. Even the savages come into this part of the
land but seldom."

Said Father Junipero, "It is plain that you, like our-
selves, have not been here for some time. The house we
have just left is yonder, by those trees — or — that is —
Why, look, brother, it is gone!"

The dawn was whitening, and the morning star threw
down one long beam on the place where that house had

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 109

been; a beam such as fell from the star of Bethlehem, so
that a silver mist brooded upon the site.

"Kneel!" commanded Junipcro. "Miracle has been
done. Now I know that the cottage was built by angels,
and they who served us were Joseph, Mary and Jesus.
God smiles upon our work. From this hour we dedicate
ourselves to it with new vigor and a firmer faith."

CHAPTER X

BACK TO EL CAMINO REAL AND WHAT SAN LUIS OBISPO
HAS TO TELL OF HER ROMANTIC PAST

Out from Harris the countryside Is a veritable splash
of color. The hills browned by the scorching sun are
spattered with shrubs that under the same fire have
turned to deep umber, making shadows contrary to all
laws of nature. Yellow masses of golden wheat are
clumped about deep gashes torn In the hillside by the
rush of waters that have stained the earth to the hue of
muddy coffee. So theatrical Is It according to one writer
that you almost expect to see a chorus of stage milk-
maids come trooping out the "wings" of Santa Maria.

A saintly-looking town Is Santa Maria, with the lid
well clamped down over her natural fiery Impulses — the
gas wells that forever rumble beneath the surface. In
earlier days the Fire Spirit sent a roar of flames gushing
high from every gaping cavity, around which the Indians
danced and chanted in solemn worship. Bowing to the
earth again and again they would cast Into the glowing
pit their choicest possessions, In the primitive belief that

110

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS HI
this god demanded earthly gifts from all his worshippers.

Across the Santa Maria River is a valley still known
as the Oso Flaco (lean bear), receiving its name from one
of the Spanish soldiers of the Portola expedition who
killed a half-sick bear, so emaciated that it could hardly
toddle, and insisted upon immortalizing his exploit —
probably it was the same famous sharpshooter who
brought down the gull at Gavioto. Here begins that wide
stretch of cattle ranches known to the elect as "cow
heaven." The dense foliage of the plentiful oaks affords
shelter during the hottest noonday or in the midst of the
fiercest gale. The level stretches are covered with
native grasses that grow lush and luxuriant, always within
easy distance of quiet pools sheltered in some shady nook.
Under such cow-heavenly conditions it is no wonder that
the original twenty-one bulls, nine cows and eight calves
of the Mission San Luis Obispo increased and multi-
plied with such extraordinary rapidity that in a few years
the number could only be estimated.

Approaching Arroyo Grande the wayside hills are
half hidden by a ghostly curtain of mist woven by the
breath of the nearby Pacific just as children film the
window panes by gently breathing upon them. With
Pismo the ocean comes into full sight, ceaselessly at work,
its long, curling breakers cutting into the overhanging
rocks numberless strange arches and sea caves. Just
behind are curious terraced gardens, the lowest hardly

112 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

ten feet above low tide, the middle perhaps sixty, while
a third is fully a hundred feet over the sea, all planted in
one mass of flowers whose fragrance is carried by ocean
breezes far inshore to more plebian neighbors. This is
the playground of the thousands fleeing from the heat of
the interior and the paradise of motor speedsters who with
wide open throttle fly over the seventeen miles of beach
in half as many minutes.

In brilliant sunshine and under cloudless sky its long
stretches with slow-reaching waves makes a fairy spec-
tacle, but to the eye of Cagrillo, who discovered it nearly
four centuries ago on a dark November day, the moun-
tainous waves then thundering upon the shore, must
have been a sinister and menacing sight. He named it
Todos Santos (all saints), feeling that his danger justified
him In calling upon the entire hierarchy of the blessed
realm, but Gasper de Portola, on a later land expedition
thought one saint was sufficient and dedicated the entire
valley to San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.

The town and mission of that name is seven miles
inland. At Its outskirts is a cheery sign of greeting:
"Welcome to our city" — rather unfortunately placed at
the gateway of the cemetery!

SAN LUIS OBISPO DE TOLOSA

According to that much quoted diary of Father
Crespi, written during the Monterey Expedition in 1769,

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 113

It was near the Canada de los Osos, or Bear Valley, where
bears were so plentiful that the ground was pawed up for
miles in their search for roots, that the exploring party
came to a gentle-rising hill overlooking a charming
vista of meadows, hills and winding streams. Here
Father Crespi at once determined to found a new mission,
showing the same unerring judgment exhibited In the
founding of all California Missions.

Three years later, or on September 1, 1772, Father
Palou writes that the cross was elevated on this very
spot. They suspended a bell to the branch of a syca-
more growing on the river's edge and after ringing it for
some time to attract the attention of the Indians, cried
aloud: ^^Ea Gentiles/ Venid! Venidl a la Santa Iglesa
a recibir la fe de Jesu CristoP^ — (Come, O ye Gentiles
and receive the faith of Jesus Christ). The Indians
although not understanding a word, by curiosity were
drawn In great numbers, and mass was sung to a vast
throng.

Under the lights and shadows of the waning day one
of the neighboring hills showed a triple peak, suggesting
to these men of simple faith a bishop's mitre, and to this
very day that hill Is called the hill of the bishop, and the
mission was named after the Bishop of Toulouse, San
Luis Obispo de Tolosa, an Italian saint of the Thirteenth
Century. It is possibly worthy of notice that the quality
of sainthood seems to vary with the number of years

114 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

elapsed since canonization. In other words, the longer
one is dead, the more of a saint he will be. But St. Luis
though he dated only from the Thirteenth Century,
ranks far above those who entered the race for saintly
honors many centuries before — an example to other infant
prodigies. Being made a prisoner in one of the Sicillian
wars and attacked with a long and dangerous illness, he
vowed that if he recovered he would join the Order of
St. Francis. After seven years spent in captivity he was
released and fulfilled his vow. Many years later he was
elected Bishop of Tolouse, where he made a name for
himself, even in a day of many famous men. He died
before reaching the age of twenty-four .

The usual temporary buildings were at once erected,
to which flocked the Indians, very friendly and most
profuse in their thanks for the help of the strangers in
driving away the bears with powder and ball, for most of
them could show terrible wounds received in their daily
encounters with these creatures. When more substantial
buildings became necessary, there arose upon the "gentle-
rising hill" a long stretch of white walls with a towered
church, the facade pierced and recessed for bells. Along
the convento front ran an arcade, inviting the rays of the
morning sun and granting protection against the ocean's
cool afternoon winds. Immediately before it lay the El
Camino Real, by which travelled all the voyagers of that
day. Being so near, this road was a constant source of

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 115

danger. And three times the buildings were set on fire by
unknown hands before one of the padres conceived the
idea of roof-plates of hard burnt clay. He became
known as the "tile Padre," and his tiles covered all the
missions from San Diego to Sonoma. They were made by
the neophytes, who would knead the earthy clay with
their feet until the mixture reached the proper consistency
— tiresome work, and the tile Padre soon discovered that
the only way to keep the Indians at their task was to
gather the priests around the mixing trough and have
them sing old Gregorian chants. When the singing
stopped the Indians stopped.

San Luis rose to great wealth, being amongst the
richest of the missions, tradition falsely asserting that the
main source of these riches was local gold mines, but
though eagerly sought by keen-eyed Yankees for a cen-
tury, not a trace of them has ever been discovered.
Amongst the hillside Indians, worshippers of the sun, the
god who made the earth and rules the sky, whose wife is
the moon and whose children are the stars, and whose
rising is daily greeted with cries of joy — there is the
legend that this deity will some day return from the
West and drive out the white intruders. When he does
so he will demand earth's golden store as his reward,
and until then none can be removed!

In 1833 the blighting hand of secularization throttled
all further progress. The vicious and revengeful Mexi-

116 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

cans never concerned as to the legality of their actions,
wrecked and pillaged without heed for the to-morrow,
and soon only dismantled, deserted buildings remained.
At the American occupation the church was used as a
barracks and the convento as a jail, then as a school
house, a restaurant, and even as a saloon.

Modern innovations, called improvements, have swept
away all trace of those "gardens of surpassing beauty"
which once stretched for a mile or more beyond the mis-
sion, leaving, in odd, out-of-the-way corners, haphazard
clumps of olives, giving the town of Obispo the familiar
nickname of "Little Italy," much to the disgust of many
of the inhabitants who claim Portugal, Mexico or Spain
as their birth place, and are still speaking their own
language — the explanation of the frequent signs posted
about the city: "English Taught."

El Camino Real has been transplanted to the center
of the city, while just across the old road, blocking the
view of those with an eye inclined to look upon the
crumbling yet beautiful remains, are a Palace Bar, an
Oyster Cafe and an Imperial Garage. These ugly mon-
strosities seem to have disapproved the taste of the
reverend Fathers, for the beautiful arcade has been torn
down and the adobe clapboarded into an ugly New
England meeting house. But nothing can take away the
peace of the sweet old-fashioned inner garden where the
low, overhanging roofs covered with grapevines and

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 117

roses invite repose, and fortunately nothing has been
taken from the church itself; everything, even to the little
old-fashioned silver censer is as it was years ago, while
the investments and robes brocaded with gold and silver,
richer than anything manufactured in our day, are just
as they were when sent from wicked old Spain to lure the
ignorant Indian into the bosom of the church.

Of the five bells brought over by the old Fathers only
one has lost the use of its tongue, and that one sits quietly
off in one corner, mutely telling the story of a wondrous
past. And in the main those old days were days of kind-
ness, of sacrifice and obedience to the edicts of the
Franciscan Order. De Mofras writes of finding Padre
Abella, after forty-seven years of work, living in solitude
in the ruined mission, with no attendant, no bed but a
hide stretched on a wooden frame, no cup except a hol-
lowed horn, and no food except strips of jerked beef
furnished by the foreign occupants of the mission lands,
and this food he shared with the few surviving Indians
who lingered about their old abode.

Certainly, Father Abella realized the vision of St.
Francis.

TWO NATIVE DANCES

The setting sun on the last day of the week gave the
eagerly awaited signal for all the neophytes to gather
just outside the mission walls, where in the open field lay

118 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

a great circular hall built of widely separated poles, sup-
porting a roof of tule. Around the outside of this rotunda
were stuck lighted torches. In the center was a blazing
fire, throwing into sharp relief the musicians already in
place. A deep roll of many drums, with a blare of
trumpets and a staccato of castanets set up a plaintive,
wild harmony, moving to the nerves rather than to the
soul, but soon attracting about the fire a band of dancers
naked but for loin cloths and feathered hats, their bodies
striped black, blue and red, and in their hands sticks
taller than themselves.

To the music they begin to circle around the fire, the
body curved, the knee somewhat bent, moving with
wonderful accord. Gesticulating in frightful contortions
and grimacing with hate and terror, they strike the ground
with their sticks and then as though coming from a great
distance, an Indian completely covered with feathers
bursts upon the scene. At sight of him the dancers shriek
with fright and run as if to hide, calling upon the gods to
protect them from Cucusuy — the devil. A fanfare of
trumpets is sounded to drive away evil spirits, and
Cucusuy retires behind the trees from whence come cries
and groans of torment and suffering. At these sounds the
dancers resume their places, again circling around
the fire, this time throwing live birds into the blazing
ashes which they kceo turning with their sticks as they
dance.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 119
When well roasted, the birds are pulled out and
divided among the spectators, the torches are extin-
guished and the dance is at an end.

It is fiesta at the mission, and long before their elders
will rise from their comfortable beds, the young girls
gather at the arbor where the la jota song will soon ring
out in the morning air. Very beautiful most of them,
with a slight tint of brown to the skin, a pair of sparkling
black eyes and teeth of the whitest color. All wear skirts
of fine muslin, overspread with gilt spangles, brightly
colored jackets and high-heeled slippers that click as
they walk. Most of them have their hair combed straight
back, held high on the head by a tortoise-shell comb, the
coil pierced by a long thick pin of gold, tipped with
jewels. Some are covered with mantillas, the ends
gathered across the breast and pulled tight, showing the
well-shaped figures to the best ad-vantage.

No sooner seated in an arbor roofed with boughs and
gay with ribbons and flowers, then the harp and the violin
strike up a joyous melody, so full of fantastic quirks as
to put "Old Nick" in the feet of every dancer. As the
sound floats out over the plaza, up to the arbor come
dashing forty young horsemen dressed in their finest —
a broad-brimmed, pointed crown hat of leather, glossed
to a mirror-like polish rests on a red silk handkerchief
wound turban-fashion about the head, a band under the

120 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

chin holds the hat In place, while a gold silk cord and
tassel dangles over the side of the hat, hiding itself in the
mass of dark locks that curl about their shoulders. A
wide white collar rolls over a bluish vest which fits close
like a coat of mail, gold buttons matching the hat tassel
ornament the vest. A brilliant red sash holds the black
velvet trousers in place, and these are slit up to the knee,
revealing tight-fitting buckskin leggings laced all the
way down to the wicked-looking spurs clamped to the
boot heels.

Dismounting, these cavaliers remove their spurs and
hang them at their saddle bow and with hat In hand enter
the arbor, where kneeling before the partner of their
choice they sigh out: ^' Sabe que soy suyo^' — (Know that
I am thine). The senoritas at once arrange themselves
opposite the senors, leaving a wide space between, the
man at the head begins to sing some popular folk song
not unlike a Mother Goose melody. The woman opposite
takes up the strain, followed by the next two, forming
a quartette of voices. Singing, the four pirouette down
the center, then around the outside to their former sta-
tions, when succeeding four follow in order. With grace-
fully swinging figures, in perfect time to the music which
sways from a grand crescendo to a faint whisper of song
they dance around and around the room.

This is a breakfast appetizer.

CHAPTER XI

ABOUT THE ONE-TIME DANGEROUS ROADS AND THE MYTH

OF SAN MIGUEL

Some six miles out from San Luis Obispo is one of the
high points in the Santa Lucia Range. It bears the name
of Cuesta, meaning "pass," and at the Httle red school-
house up the road it is probably taught, with pride, that
this name was given by Viscaino, away back in 1602.
But to these half-breed, fiery-blooded Mexicans it is far
more a matter of pride that here, on this very spot, their
countryman Joaquin Murieta fought the Americans and
caused them to withdraw.

Murieta was the "King of California cut-throats'* —
the "Fra Diavolo of this Eldorado," with a history
abounding in dramatic interest. He came to the country
when the first flush of the gold fever was spreading abroad,
and started as an honest miner staking out his claim which
unfortunately proved so rich that American desperadoes
heard of it and drove him away after strapping him to a
tree and flogging him to near-unconsciousness. As the
heavy thongs lacerated his bare back, Murieta registered

121

122 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

an oath of vengeance and became the implacable foe of
every American. To kill was now his dream. For every
lash laid upon him he vowed that ten Yankees' lives
should be forfeited, and within a month Murieta was at
the head of a band of highwaymen who fearlessly ravaged
and killed in every direction, even though along the whole
mission coast line the country was bewailing its dead and
ringing with offers of reward.

Just a bit off the highway, on a knoll, amidst golden
fields, is the Chapel Santa Margarita, an asistencia of
San Luis, only eleven miles away from the mother church,
but known as the half-way meeting place between San
Luis and San Miguel, where the friars occasionally came
together for mutual help and to confess one to the other.
It is now the storage place for a neighboring ranch, all
vestige of chapel ha^'dng disappeared long since.

But still standing on the western border of the great
Carrisa plain of San Luis Obispo is a temple, hewn in the
rock, facing the rising sun — a temple for sun worshippers,
called by the Spanish discovers La Piedra Pintada,
"The Painted Rock." From amongst these sun wor-
shippers the Mission San Luis drew many of its converts^
but never was able entirely to kill the love and devotion
given by them to the bright, shining sun which came so
mysteriously from out of the East, bringing all comforts
and chasing away all terrors. Perhaps this love of nature
made them the better Christians. Who knows?

'v.

•..>r?rt«.

iM>()R\\.\y, SANTA MARCARITA CHAPKL AT SAN LUIS OBISPO

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 123

On the direct highway, about eighteen or nineteen
miles from San Luis, is another sort of Aladdin Lamp
performance — the Atascadera colony, a realization of the
magic vision of an enterprising Easterner who, almost over
night, transformed a thousand-acre cattle ranch into a
veritable co-operative community city. Butcher, baker
and candlestick-maker are housed in a great building of
steel and concrete. All of the community settlers, being
stockholders, trade there and there alone. In the muni-
cipal centre, where are staged the town activities, is a
pretentious edifice (and no other word would describe it).
From this rad iate miles of beautiful avenues, shaded by
full-grown trees, running as far as the beaches of the
Pacific, where the waves thunder upon the shore, and
spray the rocky coast with great geysers of surf, for the
sole amusement of this close corporation.

Through oak-studded plains winds the macadam
boulevard, passing Templeton, one of the four great mili-
tary camps of the United States, where the wide open
spaces lend themselves to world-war manoeuvers, with
thousands participating in its sham battles. Plains give
way to curving hills; with rise and dip from one plateau
to another, leading finally into Paso Robles, "The Pass of
Oaks," whose advertising booklets modestly describe it
as the only place in the world to "recreate, rest and
recuperate^" and warrant their sulphur and mud baths to
cure all the ills of the world. There is a legend attached

124 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

to this last panegyric: The Indian Utes' great chief,
Forked Lightning, loved for his justice as well as his
power and courage, was one time stricken with an unac-
countable disease and the medicine men gave him to
Death, telling him that the Great Spirit wished to gather
him to his fathers. Yet, in an effort to propitiate their
gods, they decided on a last sacrifice. A buffalo bull was
killed, skinned, lifted to an altar of logs, and burned, the
people prostrating themselves during this ceremony.
When the body had gone to ashes the medicine men said
"Rise. The god has spoken. Our chief will not die. A
big medicine Is to come from the earth and cure him, and
it shall be for all time for the healing of our nation. Day
after day an arrow must be shot, until it falls and stands
upright in the earth, there will a great medicine appear."
And so it came to pass that a far-off roaring sounded in
the earth, the rocks trembled, and the people hid their
faces, believing that the Great Spirit was passing and the
ground was bending under his footsteps. Then came a
crash and hiss as the earth opened and fountains of mud
and scalding water were hurled into the air. Steam and
sulphur fumes burst forth as from the centre of the globe.
When the commotion had subsided the chief commanded
his men to bury him to the chin in warm mud and leave
him there for a day. This they did. In the evening, when
he came out, he had regained not his health alone, but his
youth.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 125
Such is the history of the Pasa Robles springs, and
to this day the Indian sick are brought from far-away
lands. Nine miles out of Pasa Robles, still among the
oaks, following the Salinas River, brings one to the Mis-
sion San Miguel.

SAN MIGUEL

The mission dedicated to the Gloriosisimo Principe
Archangel Senor San Miguel was founded July 25, 1797.
Archangel Michael beams as the light of light, opening a
vision of heaven to the multitude on earth. The four
archangels are the watchmen of the Catholic Church and
Michael is the chief of these guardians. He was prince of
the armies which stood around the Jewish people crying
to the angelic hosts: "Mi-cha-el Quisut Deus." Now
he is prince of the host guarding the Church of God.
He has wings, and golden hair, and a circlet from which a
cross rises above his brow, and he carries a pair of scales
weighing souls.

Those old padres must have been a sturdy lot, for in
this so-called pass of San Miguel the sun burns with a
heat almost unbearable. Cabrlllo called it Caliente For-
nelo — ^Hot Furnace — which, according to some etymolo-
gists, are the root words for California. Local gossips tell
in all seriousness, how even the flies cannot endure the
months of July and August, but during the heat of any

126 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

day can be seen gasping upon the tile floorings. A dog-
gerel current in the little town best tells the story:
"She bowed her head upon his breast

As hotter grew the summer weather,
And as her form he weakly pressed,

They melted right away together."
But hot as it was, Father Sitjar and Antonio de la Con-
cepcion immediately began the erection of the church
and other necessary buildings — never very extensive,
as compared with those on the lower end of the chain,
but even to this day most interesting; as for some inex-
plainable reason neither time nor man has done much to
disturb them. Mr. James, a student of mission decora-
tion, describes the walls as painted with a series of bands,
some in green and brown, with pomegranate leaves and
fruit, or conventional designs in lozenge pattern. Other
bands in pinks and shades of green radiate fan-shape from
the floor, topped by a frieze and a painted balustrade.
The old pulpit has a peculiar fascination with its quaint
sounding-board and crown-like cover, surmounted by a
ball upon which rests a cross, resembling a bird nest
fastened to the wall or as someone puts it, like a candle-
extinguisher about to drop. On the old cell-like confes-
sional are still traceable the carved roses signifying sub-
rosa, the artist forgetting that Cupid gave the Harpocrates,
the God of Silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the
amours of Venus.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 127

Exteriorly the church has also been maintained in a
fair state of repair. The corridor which fronts the con-
vento is just as it was, despite the amusing construction of
the arches — irregular, varying in size and shape, unusual
even in the work of these amateur mission architects.
The white walls are topped by the original dull-red tile,
making a pleasing color contrast to the green of the sur-
rounding pasture land. In all, San Miguel has much of
the ancient flavor one might expect in an old-time mis-
sion, were it not for the distressing modern note sounded
by a tall steel spider-legged tower, in which swings the
church bell — all the old bells cast into one. And this lack
of respect for historic monuments is only enhanced by the
irregligious tendency of these modern days, shown in the
sign tacked to the entrance door:

"This is a church. Treat it as such. Playing rag-
time on the organ is forbidden. On entering please re-
move your hat. No dumping of lunch boxes, rubbish or
empty bottles on the church grounds — you wouldn't like
it on your own private grounds."

Within the inner quadrangle, once thick set with
grapevines and fruit trees, is only "a ragged corporal's
guard" of ancient pears, spared at the time of seculariza-
tion by some conscience-stricken Father who probably
was accustomed to rest beneath their shade during the
heat of the day or perhaps fed from their luscious fruit
and didn't have the heart to destroy them.

128 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Not far away several sulphurous hot springs bubble,
boil and sizzle — the off-shoots,mostlikely, of the big spring
of Pasa Robles, causing this little mission — the smallest —
to become the most popular, for here the Padres of all
the missions, together with ecclesiastics of every rank
were wont to congregate, spending days and sometimes
weeks in the healing waters.

The padres were physicians for the body as well as
for the soul, and endeavored to follow their Master in
healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out devils.
At each mission there was what we moderns would know
as an infirmary — ^just a gallery with some mats on which
the sick neophytes could lie. Here the padres, as best
they could, acted as physicians, though generally the
Indians preferred their own medicine men who by study
or tradition had acquired a certain knowledge of the vir-
tues of plants. For ordinary pains counter-irritants pro-
duced by a whipping of nettles or even the bites of large
ants were no uncommon remedy, though blood-letting
was often practised, the affected part being cut with a
sharp stone. When a person felt seriously ill, it was always
declared to be caused by 'the presence of some foreign
body such as a hair, bone or thorn, and one of the sorcerers
would apply his lips to the seat of the disease and pretend
to draw out by suction the cause of the disorder, and we
moderns can ill afford to laugh when we think of the
many patients of to-day who have been cured by the

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CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 129
pretended extraction of some foreign substance from a
supposedly affected part. If a disease was persistent
the patient was laid upon a bed of ashes or dry sand with
vessels of food and water at his head, and a fire at his feet,
and the result anxiously watched by visiting friends.

Great confidence being in their medicine men the
imagination of the patient was often strong enough or
sufficiently excited to effect a wonderful cure, in which
case the fame of the doctor was spread far and wide.

AN EXTRACT FROM THE LIFE BOOK OF TWO
MISUNDERSTOOD PADRES

It was one of those oppressively hot days, so common
in the pass of San Miguel, when even the animals of the
field lay gasping for breath. And to increase the discom-
fort, the steam that was forever floating about the hot
springs near the mission, to-day poured out in sizzling
streams as though the satanic stokers were gleefully
adding more fuel to the fires below.

Father Antonio de la Concepcion wearily dragged
himself out into the court, searching for a breath of air.
He was so tired and his head buzzed so strangely with
the disordered thoughts that kept hammering away for
recognition; and he had fought these devilish thoughts
so long — ^with no one to help. Here he was in the interior
of an unknown country, surrounded by savages with
whom he could communicate only by signs, completely

130 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

isolated from other human companionship, mentally
and physically weary. Something all of a sudden cracked,
and the devil took a hand in the game.

Antonio began to fancy himself a great ruler and with
despotic authority ordered the Indians to stop work
and make ready for a war of conquest. He collected
them all on the plaza and drilled them in military man-
oeuvers, compelling them to discharge flights of arrows,
while the soldiers, drawn up in battle array, fired round
after round of blank cartridges. The sound of these fire-
arms and the sight of this mimic warfare seemed to feed
his imaginings, and threw him into greater and greater
extravagance.

The Indians looked on, first in astonishment and then
in terror, finally becoming so frightened that they fled the
mission. The soldiers, long perplexed as to their duty,
when once they discovered that Father Concepcion car-
ried concealed in his sacerdotal robes a pair of loaded
pistols, decided to take him, forcibly if they must, to
Presidente Lasuen. So they seized and secured him,
marching him off to Monterey, where, taken before the
governor, he was pronounced incurably insane.

The lonely life, the incessant toil, the continual depri-
vations had taken their awful toll, and would continue to
do so as long as there were men to be found who were
ready to feed their spiritual young with their own life-
blood.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 131

The proud and somewhat haughty Father Luis
Martinez was largely responsible for the stories of mis-
sionary luxury so inconsistent with the vows of mendicant
poverty. The Father Presidente had entreated all the
Friars to avoid every appearance of worldly ease and had
even severely reprimanded each violation of the Fran-
ciscan rules. "We are obliged not only to avoid what
may be manifestly evil, but whatsoever has the color
and appearance of evil. Those engaged In gathering and
directing souls to God must conduct themselves like
angels among men and like men among boys. They must
be the light of the world, the beacons situated upon moun-
tain peaks; and for being thus exposed to the gaze of all
they must be the bright mark and guide of the world."
While the Father Presidente wrote: "I entreat and com-
mend your reverence for the love of Jesus Christ that
you make no use of gig or coach In any manner under any
pretext and at any time whatsoever, and If there be any
it shall be burned or taken apart to serve some other suit-
able purpose."

But if the truth must be told, here was one very faith-
ful* worker who enjoyed but little poverty and less
humility.

Living In regal state. Father Luis kept in his retinue
an Indian boy whose sole duty it was to give timely warn-
ing of the approach of the venomous ants abounding at
this mission. But despite every precaution taken by the

132 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Indian, the Padre was often bitten, and for every bite the
boy received five lashes. Later this same boy became
chief cook, and if perchance the padre, gourmandlzing
on the good things of the table, ended with a stomach-
ache, the unlucky chef got another licking; causing him to
wonder — If the dull-witted Indian ever stopped to wonder
— on the mysterious workings of Providence, for to their
minds these priests were the special messengers of the
Deity.

On fete days Padre Luis always traveled by carriage,
an odd arrangement, designed by himself and built by
the Indian mechanics under his orders. A narrow body
just wide enough for one, the seat stuffed thick with wool
to make up for the absence of springs. The harness was
made of rawhide, resplendent with gold and silver trap-
pings, from which hung many dangling bells. The coach-
man and postillion were gorgeously attired, and the coach
was drawn by four black mules on which sat little Indian
lads, preceded by a horseman who guided the mules with
his riata. Behind came the neophytes walking two by
two.

Perfectly human when one stops to consider. One
man for years was in sole possession of a kingly territory,
literally monarch of all he might survey, with thousands
and thousands of acres under his domain, and hundreds
of willing slaves under his absolute control.

"Judge not that ye be not judged."

CHAPTER XII

THE COUNTRY BEYOND SAN MIGUEL AND THE CHRONICLE
OF OLD SPANISH LIFE IN AMERICA SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA

FROM SAN MIGUEL TO SAN ANTONIO

The country lying between San Miguel and San
Antonio is singularly devoid of all historic interest, leav-
ing the Saunterers little except to reflect, as Stevenson
puts it, that the road has been developed out of tracks
followed by primitive wayfarers, and in it one may see
an expression and testimony of those other generations
who have been affected by the same ground, in the same
manner as we are aifected to-day.

May the gods pity them if they were.

All through this Salinas Valley the plain is steeped in
pitiless sunlight, and the scene is pitched in a key of fiery
color that makes it a fitting stage for the quondam snake
dances whose story the "oldest inhabitant" with tooth-
less enthusiasm mumbles to every passerby:

A hundred braves with painted faces, lining up in
long array, would pass one to the other a huge basket in
which, squirming angrily, lay rattlesnakes, collected from

133

134 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

the dusty plains thereabout. Each brave seized one or
two of these loathsome creatures, holding It between his
teeth or In outstretched hands, seemingly unconcerned,
as Its needle fangs darted towards his face and arms.
The onlookers waving strips of red were all the while
exciting these writhing rattlers to further attack. When
the shouting and the leaping had reached Its highest pitch
a drum beat sounded, the sign for one hundred daggers
of flint to leap from out as many belts; each dagger with
one stroke slit the rattlers from head to tail, making an
opening from which to drag out the still throbbing hearts,
which were popped Into the greedy mouths of the dancers,
endowing them with all the wisdom of serpents for a year
to come.

From just behind Bradley the road rolls up the easy
slopes "like a long ship in the hollows of the sea," and
then, as though rudderless, wallows to the summit of the
earthy waves. To quote Stevenson again, even though
disagreeing, "improvement may make straight roads,
but the crooked roads without improvement are the roads
of genius."

Just about here it was, that the lands of San Miguel
formerly joined the wide acres of San Antonio; for the
missions occupied all of the land along the coast except
the little owned by the presidios, pueblos and a few
ranches which were held by virtue of grants from the
King of Spain, and they objected strenuously to any other

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 135

settlement. It is told how, one quiet night when the
moon was shining brightly, two old men from Spain were
discussing with the priests the nature of the moon, and
one of the Spaniards, asked by the padre for his opinion,
coolly remarked: "Land It cannot be. Were It land,
there would be sheep of the missions up there."

The valleys below are flowered by fairy fingers, and all
the rest of the way to Mission San Antonio the scenery
grows constantly more beautiful. The hills draw slightly
apart and In the opening, away In the distance. Is Santa
Lucia, the highest peak In the range of the same name,
hazy blue In the sunlight. "Forming part of the view
and adding the human touch is San Antonio, deserted,
solitary, fast crumbling away, yet belonging to the scene
still, and the chief element of Interest In It."

Present-day architects can find nothing more deserv-
ing in Interest, nothing more original than these ruined
remains which are so well adapted to the blue skies and
lofty mountains in California.

SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA

The original pioneers in their northward wanderings,
after a hard climb over rough and rocky roads, came to a
little valley — a depression in the very midst of the moun-
tains— ^which they called La Hoya de la Siera de Santa
Lucia. Crespl, the diarist, however, because the day was
that of the Impression of the Wounds of Saint Francis,

136 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
named it Las Llagas, and Invoked the intercession of the
seraphic saint, consecrating its name with those of his
stigmata — the miraculous infliction of the five wounds of
Christ which St. Francis carried to his death.

Here was so pleasant a place that long afterwards the
travelers talked of it as one speaks of an oasis in the
desert, and the keen eye of that Franciscan Crespi took
for future reference a careful note of the black soil, so well
fitted for grain and fruit orchards. Hence it came about,
so says Hittell the historian, that a beautiful day in mid-
July in 1771 found Junipero Serra hanging bells to the
branch of a tree on this very spot. Once hung he struck
them with great vigor, crying out in a loud voice: "Come,
oh ye Gentiles, come to the Holy Church!" Father
Payeres, his assistant, standing by asked: "Why all this
ado? There are no Gentiles within hearing. It is useless
to ring the bells." Junipero replied: "Let me alone!"
and he kept on ringing with all his might, calling the
dwellers in the wilderness to the new life promised in the
Scriptures. When he had wearied his muscles and some-
what cooled his enthusiasm, he turned to the foundation
of the mission and dedicated it to San Antonio de Padua.

This Saint Anthony was afilicted just as the earlier
and even more famous saint of the same name. Women
followed him everywhere, and when one tried to tempt him
he threw himself upon a pile of burning faggots saying:
"Here is my bed: come and lie upon it!" Women

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 137
thronged the church whenever he preached, and great
ladies who usually were abed till noon would rise in the
early morning just to be certain of hearing his miraculous
voice. But did they only know it, neither walls of stone
nor leagues of distance could stay its penetrating power.
One woman, forbidden by her jealous husband from at-
tending the church where St. Anthony preached, retired
to her sitting room and threw open the outer window, and
no sooner had she done so than the walls, acting as
sounding boards, echoed every word of the famous saint
who was preaching at some far-away cathedral.

Thanks to a now more or less systematized building
plan, it was not long before everything was in readiness.
Besides the church, which was always the one grand and
prominent feature, there were dwellings for the padres,
barracks for the soldiers, storehouses and workshops —
all arcaded like the old cloisters of Spain, and as usual
built around a large hollow square, each building acces-
sible from the interior; though one or two large door-
ways, called portones, gave entrance from the outside.
The house of the padre was next to the church and like
it, fronted outwards, but the work shops of the tile
makers, the tallow melters, the pigeon tenders, deer
hunters, shepherd's, singers and wine-pressers opened
only into the interior, enabling the padre to keep better
control over them.
. San Antonio was famed far and wide for its orchestra,

138 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

taught by the good Padre Sancho, who not only wrote the
music, each part in a color distinct from the other, but
the words of the hymns he wrote as well, couched in
churchly Latin. The orchestra consisted of a drum, a
triangle, a violin, a base-viol and a flute, and over each
of these players Father Sancho labored for long weary
weeks and months. Of course many of the neophytes
could never grasp the elements of music, but even the
worst of them, in the solemn chants of the mass, were
always absorbed heart and soul, and seemed to believe,
strangely enough, that they were as proficient as the best.
An Indian wife summoned her husband before the Padre
Sancho for having serenaded another woman.

"Bring forth the culprit," said the padre, "and let him
play for us as he played for the woman he wished to
captivate."

When this was done the padre asked: "Is that the
tune you played.^"

"Si, Senor."

"Is that the best you can play it?"

"Si, Senor."

"Then I sentence you to five lashes for disturbing the
peace."

Tucked away in a loop of the river, giving unfailing
water and protected by a background of grizzly moun-
tains, opening the land only to the rays of the sun, this
beautiful San Antonio valley smiled with ever-abundant

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 139
harvests. The cultivated fields spread out so far that it
was found necessary to build atop the mission roof look-
out stations, in which day and night stood Indian boys
watching over the valley. No one could approach with-
out being seen by those keen-eyed savages, and long
before their arrival messages of warning could be wig-
wagged to the distant workers. So fruitful was this
valley that for long it has been known as Milpitas, Little
Vegetable Garden, even by the unimaginative "greasers"
who, buying nothing but fat and tallow from the mis-
sions, gained that lasting nickname. Descendants of
those early "greasers" still live hereabout. The old
mother of one was the first American woman here and
the only white woman for more than a year. She had to
live at the mission for protection, and all during that fear-
ful smallpox epidemic which carried ofit nine-tenths of the
natives she stayed shut up behind an iron-girded window,
her daily amusement, watching the corpses being carried
by. To make matters worse, no one spoke English —
not even the priest, who was a Mexican Indian, so that
she had to make her wants known by signs, which, dlfii-
cult and often ridiculous, brought the only gaiety Into
that, year of trouble. Once needing eggs she tells how
she was forced to search for a stone that looked like an
egg, place it on the ground, and sit atop It, suddenly
jumping up and cackling like a hen.

This Mexican padre spent most of his time civilizing

140 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

wild bees, showing a truer knowledge of bee life than
even our Maeterlinck and Fabre. The records state that
he was much beloved by all the little Indian boys and
girls. Could it have been the honey?

Gone are the cattle, destroyed are the vines. The cor-
ridor arches are still standing, to be sure, though back of
them lie the rafters just where they fell amidst fiery-
hued bushes, and many of the roofing tiles have been re-
moved to make coverings for neighboring houses. The
incense trees used for holy water, the flour mill, the tan-
nery and the wine-press are still in evidence, and even
now, with the sun tinting those ruins with its kaleido-
scope of colors, it remains an inspiration, though as our
old greaser friend says, "it makes one kind o' lonesome
just t' look at it."

Unfortunately San Antonio has been side-tracked by
the railroads of California. Far from any traveled route,
it is too sparsely settled to support a church, so the rain
and the sun are allowed to take their deadly toll. Would
that the patron saint of this mission, who is always
invoked by devout travelers for the recovery of whatever
has been lost, would listen to the cry of all who supplicate
for the restoration of the beauty that once was here.

To teach temperance and keep the world sober while
manufacturing rum at a good profit must have been
something of a problem to the old padres; but other days,
other customs, remember — and we are writing of 1818.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 141

In those days when'the missions were appealed to for
financial aid to help out some failing religious enterprise,
as like as not they would send as their subscription a dozen
barrels of rum. It is officially recorded at Los Angeles
that, in 1821, when work on the plaza church stopped for
lack of funds, the Mission San Gabriel came splendidly
to the rescue with a generous contribution of aguardiente,
and that the conversion of this liquor Into money, drink
by drink, was accomplished with such enthusiastic co-
operation on the part of all the citizens of Los Angeles,
that they were able to dedicate the church early in 1822.

Most of the missions manufactured aguardiente from
apples or pears, San Fernando acquiring the greatest
reputation in this cheering industry. They doubly dis-
tilled it, and when bottled it was as clear as crystal and
"as strong as the faith of the reverend Fathers."

To the honor of the padres they took every possible
precaution that the Indians should have no access to this
firewater, and more successful in this, generally, even
when absent from the mission. But to forbid so often
means to cause to desire, and then as now, there were
many to pander to curiosity. Empty brandy kegs would
be filled with water, to which v/as added burnt sugar for
color and ground chilli for spice. When sold to the
Indians as brandy, if they complained that there was "no
happiness in it," the answer would be that it was so old
that it had lost its strength.

At the Mission San Antonio the making of good wine

142 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

was long the most Important industry, the padres be-
lieving, with lago, that good wine is a good familiar crea-
ture if it be well used. About eleven in the morning,
having broken their fast immediately after mass with
only a cup of chocolate, these padres would take a small
glass of brandy with a bit of cheese ''^ para hacer boca.^^
Later they would wash down their noon-day dinner,
usually of beef or mutton and beans or lentils, with a
generous potion of rich red wine. And wine with choco-
late and biscuit for supper completed their regular daily
fare.

The process of wine manufacture was simplicity itself.
A raised platform was built on any convenient ground and
covered with well-cured clean hides, upon which the ripe
grapes were piled. Then three or four Indians would be
given a thorough scrubbing, their hair carefully tied up
and covered, their hands wrapt in cloth with which to
wipe away the "sweat of their brow." Each with a stick
in hand to steady himself, they were put to treading out
the grape juice which would be caught in leather bags tied
to the platform sides. This was emptied into large
wooden tubs where the liquid was kept for several months
under cover of the grape skins, to ferment.

Those were happy days.

CHAPTER XIII

MORE DANGEROUS ROAD AND A SUGGESTION OF THE

SOLITUDE OF SOLEDAD WITH THE FICTION OF THE

PEARLS OF LORETTO

The way from San Antonio makes a most propitious
start through a peaceful, beautiful country of gently-
rolling land covered with great live oaks up which has
crept a festoon of Spanish moss. It is still the sun-
kissed valley lying at the feet of the snow-capped Santa
Lucia and the stilleto-pointed peak which gives name to
the range is always visible to any backward glance.
It recalled to the memory of the early travelers that
spike of rock on which Maiden Lucia in the First Century
of our epoch met martyrdom. Hence its name.

Golden grain fields soon give way to knotted chaparral,
thirsty-looking sage, bright-berried cascara and sweet-
smelling yerba; and as the road wriggles over the summit
of the Jolon grade the air grows cooler.

Rapidly down hill goes the road over the rocky bed
of a branch of the Salinas River, a roaring torrent when
flushed with the rains of winter, now arid-dry, "the

143

144 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

water all sucked into the sands of humility." Here is
Thomson's Gulch, famous as the favorite place for stage
robberies. And not "all bad" were these picturesque
ruffians. It is told that a traveler who was riding one
afternoon along this very mountain road leading to the
valley and happy, maybe, with the thought of home,
was cheerfully whistling "The Girl I Left Behind Me,"
when suddenly he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs.
Turning, he saw three horsemen galloping rapidly after
him, one of whom yelled to him to stop. Realizing the
character of the invitation, the traveler put spurs to his
horse but a shot from his pursuers struck him in the leg
and brought him down. Once relieved of his money,
instead of being despatched with a knife or left to die of
a hemorrhage, tl.i bandit-doctor proceeded skilfully and
tenderly to take up the severed artery and bind the
wound. Just as he was finishing he heard a passing
wagon and directed one of his men to "wait upon" the
teamster. This was promptly done and the astonished
teamster in turn was relieved of his money. A bed was
then hastily made in the bottom of the wagon, the
wounded man placed upon it and the driver told that
his life was at stake if he didn't drive at once to the
nearest town and drive slowly and avoid the ruts.

Such were the bandits of the old days.

Curiously enough, to-day as the Saunterers roll

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 145

through this rocky defile there Is to be seen a rickety
sign bearing the single word "Danger."

It is still along the river, and in the ever-widening
valley, with its little town of "Greenfield"; especially
in contrast to the brown level plateau beyond, over
which the wind cuts like a whip. It seems to be always
blowing on this stretch. Indeed, this has so passed into
the speech of the inhabitants that their morning salu-
tation is invariably: "How are you — breezy, isn't it?"
So level is it here that the whole way lies open before you.
*'If there is changed to here, all is afterwards as It was
before." Nothing Is left to fancy and there is nothing
to see except unhomely-looking homesteads.

This Is Soledad which a would-be humorist describes
as lacking nothing but water and good society. Local
tradition has it that water was so scarce that they had
to drink whiskey instead. The usual traveler knows
it as the town of Vancouver's Pinnacles, named in honor
of the English explorer, who described them as being the
first of California's natural wonders. They are pic-
turesque masses covering six square miles of wild coun-
try that have been sculptured by erosion. Rocks of
various sizes and an Innumerable variety of shapes, range
from a few yards In height to hundreds of feet, their
sides presenting no foot-hold for man's ascent; upon
their spires and dome-like tops none but winged creatures
have ever rested!

146 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

But for the Saunterers Soledad Is only the name of
a mission town.

SOLEDAD

This wide, treeless valley of Soledad received its
name of Solitude on Crespi's first visit, seemingly in his
eyes the gloomiest, bleakest spot yet seen, though he
notes in his diary that the soldier guards, rationed that
evening with some of Spain's delicious chocolate, gave it
the more cheerful name El real de chocolat — the Camp of
Chocolate.

However, it was not until October 9, 1791, that
Nuestra Senora Dolorlsima de la Soledad was officially
founded on this "Devil's Frontier." The same sweet,
simple ceremonies were used as at all foundations, and
were carried through with the same steadfast faith and
the same joyful expectancy. Yet what could be more
mournful than the early Fathers' conception of our Lady
of Solitude; for the Virgin Mary, after her Son's ascen-
sion, is in their minds always draped in black with a
sword in her heart — the one symbolical of her desolation,
and the other of the sorrow which has pierced her soul.

For some unrecorded reason, possibly a premonition
of the short life this mission was to enjoy, Soledad never
got beyond the adobe stage. It may be because all the
time and all the labor were both needed to get a sufficient
supply of water for this arid land. And credit must be

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 147

given to these Franciscan pioneers who, knowing Httle
of engineering problems, and having at their call only-
unskilled labor, were able to construct an aqueduct
fifteen miles long, bringing sufficient water to change
20,000 barren acres into rich pasture land.

It was always one of the duties of the resident fathers
to keep books and accounts and to make annual returns
to the mission Presidente, stating not only the number
of conversions, baptisms, births, marriages and deaths,
but as well the amount of stock and grain produced and
the value of it. So we know even of this mission, little
recorded in history, that in later years over forty thousand
head of cattle roamed over Its plains and continued to
increase so plentifully that as at Purisima, in a time of
draught they had to be driven into the bay of Monterey
and drowned.

Soledad's one real claim to fame, however, is as the
burial place of Governor Arrillaga, an affable, generous,
kind-hearted man, most popular with the common
soldiers who nicknamed him Papa, and equally popular
with the Gente de Razon who were never satisfied with
a baptism or wedding that did not see him act as God-
father or groomsman.

On one of his tours of inspection, being seized with a
serious illness, he hastened to put himself under the care
of his old friend. Padre Ibanez at Soledad, and there, as
the records state, he died "a most edifying death." His

148 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

body was Interred In the center of the church in accordance
with the terms of his testament, clothed in the habit
of Saint Francis. With profound faith he left $600 to
pay for 600 masses for the repose of his soul, to which
account the Historian Hittell, mentioning it, unsym-
pathetically adds "600 masses were given at a discount,
as the court records show that only 3599 was actually
paid by the estate."

With such a deep religious feeling Arrillaga was
naturally on the best terms with the priests, especially
so with Father Ibanez of Soledad — himself something
of a character. A broad-shouldered, corpulent, unfriar-
like friar, who was exiled to California for knocking down
a Spanish officer. Whether for this reason or not, he
never extended any privileges to officers visiting Soledad,
always making them eat the same food as the neophytes
got, saying that the officers had their pay and must
live on it, and the neophytes needed for themselves all
the mission produced. In contrast he made repeated
presents to the common soldiers, all of whom loved him
for his charity and at all times he was notably kind to
his Indian flock, even unto death, paying their humble
remains the same honors as those of the wealthy.

One other of the friars comes down to history, thanks
to Robinson, who In his journey spent a night at Soledad,
and writes that Padre Sarria was a pious old man who
poured out free hospitality to all comers. His charity,

CALIFORNTAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 149

goodness and bigness of character were proverbial and
to know the old Padre was a privilege. And this was a
man wedded to Poverty — the bride of his youth.

Secularization had an easy task here; for the rain
and the sun left to work their own free will, showed
themselves pitiless, beating and melting the muddy walls
into a shapeless, unrecognizable mass.

There was not an Indian left. The care and discipline
of the Fathers being withdrawn, they also rapidly melted
away. Take from the prairies hardy wild cattle, confine,
feed and fatten them and they are the first to fall before
some disease. A civilized horse would kill a dozen of
the untamed kind at plowing, whereas free, the wild
horse would soon run the tame one to death. So it
was with the Indians.

PEARLS OF LORETTO

Wedded to Poverty, accepting with their vows the
life and example of Christ which provided "neither
gold, nor silver, nor brass for your purse, nor script for
your journey," any idea of enriching themselves could
never for a moment have entered the thoughts of those
early Franciscan friars, but It didn't prevent the laying
up of treasures In heaven and they were forever seeking
to enrich the church. Once Mother Earth had given
of her abundant wealth the Franciscans searched the
sea, and after sunrise almost any day you might see

150 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

native divers, in charge of a mission major-domo, hard
at work. Two by two on frail rafts of tule they would
paddle out to the oyster beds where one of the two would
drop overboard, having attached to his waist a long
cord that was also tied to the raft. Here the diver
would labor, a minute under water and a minute of rest,
until exhaustion forced him to become the watcher.
As soon as the pearl oysters were brought to the shore
they were divided into four heaps, one going to the
diver, one to the government and the rest to the mission
fathers, who, carefully selecting the most beautiful of
the pearls, had them convoyed under soldier guard to
the mother-mission at Loretto where they were to adorn
the robe of the Madonna.

This was the golden age in California when life was
one happy holiday, when there was little labor, little care
and little trouble — a time of pastoral sensuousness, a
time when the idle fair ones worshipped luxury, of these
last the fairest of all the fair and the maddest devotee
of glittering splendor was Ysabel Herrera. To all her
countless suitors entreating her in marriage, she gave
the same answer: "I will only marry the man who can
fill my lap with pearls."

One night at a Cascarone ball, given at the home of
the commandante, Ysabel broke her egg-shell of cologne
on the head of a handsome stranger and got kissed by way
of retaliation. Before the evening was half over De la

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 151

Vega, with the impatient fervor of the Spaniard In love
at first sight, found a chance to whisper in her ear, half-
hidden by a big red rose nestling in the softly twisted
hair.

" Te amo si te amo de veras.

No puedo mas ocultaro,

Para que mi bien collarlo^

Si conociendolo estas.''^
Flattered and tempted, she nevertheless answered
him just as she had answered all the others: "I will
only marry the man who fills my lap with pearls."
"Then you marry me," was his reply, "for I will give
you such pearls as no queen on earth possesses." On
her promise to wait he left the room. Going at once to
his quarters he aroused his Indian servant, ordering him
to saddle four horses and within an hour he and the
Indl'an were riding at full speed toward San Diego,
jumping from horse to horse as each of them gave signs
of tiring, never stopping until the mission spires of the
southern city were sighted. From there on foot they
struck down the shore only to be confronted by the
impassible spurs of the coast range, and forced to toil
back into the labyrinth of mesas and rocky plain. Hem-
med in by the mountains they would spend days scout-
ing for a pass and then would come out on great tracts
of Impenetrable cactus thickets through which they
were obliged to hew a pathway with axes. Physically

152 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

spent and in rags De la Vega at last reached San Dio-
nisio Bay, where overlooking the quiet waters stood the
famous Loretto Mission.

An easy matter for this Machiavellian Spaniard to
win the confidence of the simple-minded mission fathers
to whom with tearful eye he told how he had made this
venturesome journey in penance and expiation of a
sinful life. This exhibition of deep religious feeling was
strengthened day by day as the holy fathers saw the
long hours he spent kneeling before the Virgin. So they
gladly gave permission to spend the night in prayer at
the grotto of the Saint.

The church was dark except for the flickering flames
in cups of oil placed at the feet of St. Loretto. The light
centered on the beautiful figure which, dimpled and
smiling, fair of skin and hair, was everything that was
ideal and adorable to the dusky ignorant savages.
Pricelsss pearls were scattered through the luxuriant hair;
arms, neck and waist were entwined with ropes of these
same sea treasures and her very gown was hidden in a
blanket of jewels.

Left alone, De la Vega hurriedly stripped the sacred
image of its uncounted wealth and fled into the darkness
of the night.

So long had he been gone that Ysabel mourned him
as dead and could scarcely believe her senses when, one
late afternoon, De la Vega stepped into the patio where

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 153

she was seated, and without a word poured Into her lap
an overflowing pile of the most lustrous pearls ever seen
by mortal eyes.

That same night Ysabel appeared at the Custom
House ball wreathed in pearls — pearls everywhere;
they glistened in her hair, roped her neck and arms,
festooned her bodice and twined in hanging loops about
her skirt. Naturally all the women crowded about her
in admiration and envy, all the men with regret; for they
understood that at last her wish had been realized and
that to them she was lost. But so marvellously beautiful
was Ysabel in her new happiness that when called upon
to dance the el son, all the young men in sign of forgive-
ness piled their hats on her head until the headdress was
taller than the wearer.

As the grey light of dawn began to streak into the
room, just as the fun was at its highest, a travel-stained
priest appeared, and rushing up to De la Vega, accused
him of vile sacrilege. In the excitement that followed, De
la Vega was able to seize his sweetheart and escape from
the dance. Running with her to the cliff, he was about
to leap into the waters below and swim to the safety of
the vessel anchored In the outside harbor, when a shot
from the pursuing mob brought him to the ground.
Ysabel, made strong by love, lifted him in her arms and
sprang from the rocks.

The waters of the bay covered them forever.

CHAPTER XIV

TO MONTEREY — ^IN DEATH AS IN LIFE, THE HOME OF THE
SAINTED FATHER JUNIPERO SERRA

A CONSTANT, persistent breeze — the sort that "sets
trees talking" — sweeps the highway out of Soledad,
raising clouds of dust that lazily serpentine to the quieter
strata above.

The miracle of water has metamorphosed this once
arid, treeless valley of which a delver into ancient Indian
myths writes a pretty tale: An immense force of hill
savages attacked a Christian Indian village near Soledad,
but during the night the Mission Indians had retired to
the top of the mesa behind the village, where they could
the better endure a siege, for it is easier to shoot down
than up, and rocks could be rolled upon the enemy
when they ventured close. The attacking force made
little progress under those conditions, so they surrounded
the mesa just out of bow-reach and set a guard to keep
the Christian Indians from descending to get food or
drink. The Christians had carried up supplies of both,
but while the food gave promise of holding out for

154

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 155
two or three weeks, the water jars were soon empty.
Then one of the padres who was with them, took a scrap
of paper on which he wrote something with a stick of
charcoal, placing it under a stone and praying over it.
On taking it up, writing had appeared on the other side,
apparently telling him what to do, for he called for a
sharp splinter of obsidian or volcanic glass, such as the
people used for knives and spear-heads, and with it he
cut his arm. Water began to run from the gash — clear,
refreshing — the parched company gathered and drank
and drank, yet still the water flowed. They brought
their jars and gourds and filled them. Four or five days
later,-when the supply was gone the miracle was repeated*
At last, believing that the Christians must have inex-
haustible resources and that further operations against
them would be fruitless, the wild tribes gave up the siege
and went back to their homes. Then the neophytes
silently descended the cralg, awed by the miracle which
had saved them and was later to save the country from
centuries of drought.

Since the miracle of water this valley has been pre-
emptied by the Swiss, whose wide-range lands stocked
with dairy cattle are flowing with cheese and butter.
Almost an entire Swiss canton was depopulated by the
adventurous spirits who responded to the call of this
far-distant land of fortune. Most of them came from
forebears desperately poor, and only by painful economies

156 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

did they finance the long voyage to CaHfornia. DiHgent
and shrewd, with no false idea of race suicide, they have
made this bit of country their own.

The Salinas Valley is entered some twenty miles from
Soledad, taking its name from the many saline lakes that
lurk in the rich bottomland. It is the paradise of sheep,
for they daily fatten on the briny lush grass — a paradise
when they were brought to dispel nudity which was
thought incompatible with right living. So primitive
looms were constructed, and the Indians clothed as the
first essential to Christianity. To such advocates of
nakedness as the Indians, that first initiation into rough
woolen weaves must have been only comparable to our
first week of Winter's red flannels.

The city of Salinas planted in the middle of this bald
plain, is the turn in the road to San Carlos. Happily
its blatant Twentieth Centuryism has not been able to
entirely erase all of Spain's romantic fingermarks. One
of the lagoons nearby is still called Graciosa, named in
ridicule of one of Portola's soldiers who, with southern
extravagance, called it an elegant sheet of water. And
then there is still Las Pulgas, commemorating the visit
to the Salinas Indian village, where the visitors were
welcomed by a horde of exceptionally active fleas — ^just
a couple of the early landmarks, barely enough to leaven
the commercial crust now covering this once care-free
country where everything glowed "in the sunset of the

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 157

day before yesterday, and with the dawn of the day after
to-morrow."

The modern note is forcibly struck by huge beet-
sugar refineries which, as the village humorist puts it,
"Spreckle" the entire country, almost into Monterey.
But after a while the road runs down to a rough, spotty
undergrowth, thick with crouching live oaks and Spanish-
bearded pines, where the ocean waves break eternally,
wave after wave, every moment one.

It is a fit setting for the Mission San Carlos Bor-
romeo.

SAN CARLOS BORROMEO DEL CARMELO DE MONTEREY

It was the Conte de Monterey, viceroy of Spain,
who in 1602 outfitted Viscaino for his first voyage of
discovery, and in recompense was rewarded by having
"that sapphire bay and golden crested beach" — the
Monterey of to-day — named in his honor.

More than one hundred and sixty years later, im-
mediately after the foundation of San Diego, Don Caspar
de Portola, by royal command, started out to rediscover
this much famed Monterey, but owing to the meager
description left by Viscaino, he failed to recognize it,
even though actually raising a cross on the bay's " Silvery
sands," marking the cross: ^' Escarbe al pie y hallaras
un escrito^^ — ("Dig at the foot and you will find a writ-
ing")— and they buried a brief account of the expedition,

158 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

closing with a prayer to God the All-powerful, to guide
them on their way and conduct the navigator, whoever
he might be that should find the paper, to the port of
salvation. Quite disheartened and chagrined at their
apparent failure, the expedition found its weary way
back to San Diego where all but sturdy Padre Serra were
bent upon abandoning the enterprise and returning to
Mexico. But again aroused by Serra's enthusiasm and
religious zeal, a second expedition was equipped and in
course of time arrived at Punta de Pinos, near which a
cross had been erected the preceding year. Father
Palou writes that upon approaching this cross they
found it surrounded with arrows and feathers, and hung
with a sardine and other pieces of flesh. It seems the
Indians noticed that the Spaniards always carried on
their bosom a radiant cross, and when they beheld this
same symbol, erected upon the beach, it seemed to shine
with fiery splendour and, as they looked, to grow in
size until it filled the whole heaven. Afraid at first to
approach it, they finally drew near and made offerings
of flesh and fish. Then seeing these were not eaten, they
planted arrows and feathers to show they desired peace
with this wondrous image and those who had planted
it there.

It was immediately and miraculously revealed to
Father Junipero that this was the same beautiful port of
Monterey discovered in 1602, and it was even given him

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 159
to discover the wide-spreading oak whose branches still
kissed the white-capped waves at high tide, under whose
boughs mass had been celebrated as related in Viscaino's
journal: "And we set up a chapel under an immense
oak tree whose spreading branches overhung the beach."
Beneath the grateful shade of this same tree mass was
again celebrated, the water blessed, and the joyous Te
Deum chanted. And when the low murmurlngs of the
praying padres had ceased, Caspar de Portola stepped
into the midst of the assembly and amid the boom of
cannon took formal possession of the port in the name
of God and the King.

This first rough booth of branches erected under
Viscaino's oak was transformed into a temporary church
and consecrated, but Father Serra soon discovered that
there was no soil suitable for cultivation, and he decided
to move to the Carmel River, which, also, owed its
name to Viscaino who christened the river in recognition
of the self-sacrifice of the three barefoot Carmelites who
accompanied him, and to serve as a lasting remembrance
to our "Lady of the Mount." This change in location
has caused the mission to be often known as San Carlos
del Rio Carmelo, or merely Carmel Mission, though
its rightful title is San Carlos Borromeo del Carmelo de
Monterey.

San Carlos was of noble parentage and so able to
attend the aristocratic university of Parma, which at the

160 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

time was notorious for the immoral conduct of its
students; but even from early age Carlos resisted temp-
tation of every sort. When he left the university with
the help of his uncle, the Cardinal de Medici, he made
the great pilgrimage to the Holy Winding Sheet of our
Lord, but with incessant fasting and merciless scourging
he so weakened himself that he fell an easy prey to the
fevers of the East: "a valuable life sacrificed for want of
using reasonable precautions to preserve it."

The old-time presidio church at Monterey — San
Carlos de Monterey — so often confounded with the Car-
mel Mission, though dating back to mission times was
never properly a mission church. It was the royal chapel,
the place of worship for the Governors of California,
but when Carmel Mission was abandoned, all the mem-
orials and relics of Serra were transferred here, lending
it a mission mantle. In the rear can now be seen the
dead trunk of that historic tree near which Viscaino
landed and where mass was first celebrated. Some years
ago, being injured in the course of city Improvements,
it was unthinkingly torn up and thrown into the bay.
But happily Monterey's parish priest was blessed with a
reverence for the past and he rescued the tree, placing
it behind his church for all the world to reverence.

San Carlos Borromeo del Carmelo stands on an ele-
vation near the sea, so that the bay with its shores and
the plain with Its groves and meandering river are all

CAUFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 161

Spread out like a panorama, to one looking from the
mission.

An outside stairway leads to the church tower where
hang six bells, one of which once rang for meals, work
. and rest, so that the daily routine of the mission went
along with such regularity that even the laboring animals
understood and obeyed. The morning Angelus sum-
moned all to rise and come to prayers. And one of the
padres of San Carlos rang it. Being in delicate health,
and not able to refrain too long from his morning choco-
late, and of course being forbidden to take any nourish-
ment until mass was said, he always got the whole popu-
lation In motion long before sunrise and on their way to
church. At the second ringing of the bell each neophyte
brought his closely-woven basket for his portion of
atole — a thick gruel of barley. At the third summons of
the bell, just at sunrise, all the neophytes went to work,
at which they continued until the eleven o'clock bell
rang for the dinner of stewed meat and vegetables. At
two, back again to work, until the peal of the Angelus,
but every afternoon between three and four, during the
heated hours, the padres sent to the fields a burro laden
with jars of sweetened water and vinegar to refresh
the workers. At five the duties of the day were over and
man and beast plodded homeward, where, after vespers
and a light supper, sleep spread over the mission and all
was quiet.

162 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

At the ringing of the Angelus, whether heard within
the mission or in the presidio town, no matter what was
being done, off went the hat, and a prayer was said.
Even gamblers paused in their exciting game, these bells
bringing them at once into communion with their Maker
— at least in form.

Once upon a time the cloisters were hung with weird
pictures of hell and damnation; one showed a king and a
monk, up to their middles in the flames of purgatory,
their position one of prayer, and their faces wearing a
pleasant smile hardly to be expected in the midst of
such blistering heat. Another represented a vain beauty
with snakes coiled round her arm in the act of biting,
and at the rear of the church was once found her epitaph:
*'0 human skull, where are now thine eyes,

O skull, those eyes with which thou didst try to
ensnare;
Where those lips and tongue with which thou didst
slander thy neighbor;

Those painted cheeks to beguile,
Hair, neck, shoulders, all has vanished

Like the smoke in the air.
O, vanity of vanities, thy soul is in hell."

The mission was secularized in 1834 and a Mexican
agent was sent to Monterey expressly to take charge.
He sailed on the brig Natalia, the very vessel upon which
Napoleon Bonaparte made his memorable escape from

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 163

the Isle of Elba. While lying in the harbor of Monterey,
a heavy northeaster parted the ship's cable and she
drifted ashore where portions of the hull still lie buried
in the sand.

All the mission property was divided among the
Indians and though it was forbidden to buy from them,
yet in one single year they had either sold or gambled
away what they could not eat and drink. The padres'
spiritual children rapidly sank into vice and degradation,
and by 1840 there was nothing left but ruined buildings
and the old glory of San Carlos had departed forever.

Stevenson, who lived at Monterey for a while, gives
us a word sketch of these mission days: "The day of the
Jesuit is gone by and the day of the Yankee has suc-
ceeded, and there is no one left to care for the converted
savage. The mission church is roofless and ruinous.
Sea breezes and sea fogs are daily widening the breaches.
Only one day in the year the padre drives over the hills
from Monterey, and the little sacristy, which is now the
only covered portion of the church, is filled with seats
and decorated for the services. The Indians troop in,
their bright dress contrasting with their dark and melan-
choly faces, and here among a crowd of somewhat un-
sympathetic holiday makers you may hear God served
with perhaps more touching circumstance than in any
other temple under heaven. An Indian, stone-blind and
about eighty years of age, conducts the singing, while

164 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Other Indians compose the choir. I have never seen
faces more vividly Ht up with joy than the faces of these
Indian singers. It made a man's heart sorry for the good
fathers of yore who have now passed away from all
authority in this land."

In still later years these beautiful ruins became the
hiding place for idlers and revellers till it was believed
that Satan haunted the highway and no one would travel
there by night. But one young man on a wager agreed
that on the first dark night he would drive "a nail of
contempt" in these sacred walls. Reaching the church
safely he drove the nail, but as he turned to hasten back,
something held him. Madre de Dios, 'tis Satan! And
the next morning his friends found his dead body standing
by the church door, upheld by his serape, one corner of
which was fastened to the wall by the very nail he had
driven.

Junipero Serra was born on the Island of Majorca
in 1713, and almost from babyhood seemed destined to
the priesthood. He took the habit of a Franciscan monk
at sixteen and even in that early age endeared himself
to his superiors by extreme penance and rigid fasting.
He studied nothing but the lives of saints and the chroni-
cles of their labors, which produced such a deep impres-
sion that he resolved to become a missionary and felt
willing if necessary to shed his blood for the salvation of

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 165

savage souls, saying: "He that converteth a soul to God
shall shine as a star in the firmament of heaven."

When the monestary of San Fernando in Mexico
asked for recruits in America, Serra joyfully responded,
and the uncomplaining patience with which he suffered
the tortures of thirst during this long voyage was a source
of inspiration to all. When asked how he went so long
without water he replied "I eat little and talk less, and
so do not waste my saliva."

The labors of Father Junipero were now approaching
their close. It was only surprising that a man so merci-
less to himself and so extravagant in his religious fervor
could have kept on so long. Besides the chain with which
he was daily accustomed, in imitation of St. Francis, to
scourge himself, he often carried a huge stone into the
pulpit, where at the end of his sermon, in what was known
as the act of contrition, he would lift the image of the
crucified Christ in his left hand and with his right,
seizing the stone, strike himself repeatedly on the breast,
and with such violence that many of the congregation
were afraid he would give himself a fatal blow and fall
dead before their very eyes. On some special occasions
when preaching upon the subject of purgatory and
perdition he would light a large taper having four wicks,
open the bosom of his habit and place the burning mass
next his flesh. To-day this would be regarded as an

166 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

act of a distempered brain; then It was the most forceful
manner of reaching and aifecting the audience, and to
attain this purpose there was nothing which Junlpero
would not have been wlUing to endure.

But It was only his great spirit t"hat had kept him up
and enabled him to triumph over the weakness of the
flesh. Now he knew that the end was near. Desiring
to receive the last sacrament he Insisted, sick and feeble
as he was, upon going to the church, saying that it was
not meet that the Lord should come to him. Upon reach-
ing the altar he threw himself upon his knees, remaining
there all during the service for the dying. After being
given absolution and receiving the holy viaticum, he
joined In the Tantum Ergo, and a thrill went through the
church as Father Junipero's wavering voice repeated that
grand old hymn. "He then returned to his cell of
adobe where," writes Palou, "he asked for the holy oils
and repeated with us the penitential songs and litanies.
Expressing a desire to go to rest, we left the apartment,
supposing he meant sleep, as he had slept none the night
before, but it was the rest which knows no waking."

When the mission bells were tolled announcing his
death, the entire population burst Into tears, and they
crowded around his sleeping apartment, with difficulty
stifling their sobs. The body was Immediately laid in a
coffin which had been prepared the week before by the
presidio carpenter at Junipero's own request. Six lighted

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 167

tapers were placed about it and the door of the cell was
thrown open, and though a storm had arisen and the
wind blew, the tapers without a flicker still flamed. The
Indian neophytes came in and adorned his bier with
flowers, while the Spaniards who pressed around reached
out their rosaries that they might be sanctified by contact
with the hands of the now blessed father.

At nightfall a procession was formed and the body
conveyed to the church where it was placed before the
altar. Soldiers were stationed around to protect it from
the pious violence of those who sought memorials and
relics, but even so it was not possible with all this watch-
ing to prevent pieces of his robe and such locks as were
left by the tonsure from being cut off and carried away.
During the ceremonies at the bier the bells were cease-
lessly tolled and every quarter-hour during the entire day
the distant boom of a cannon from the presidio was heard,
answered by other cannon from the vessels in the harbor.
Palou writes that Junipero was honored as if he had been
some great General, forgetting that he was much more
honored by the tears of his neophytes and the love and
devotion of his comrades.

Father Junipero sowed the seed of fruit that is even
now being reaped and to him California is forever
indebted.

CHAPTER XV

ANOTHER EXCURSION OFF THE ROYAL HIGHWAY INTO THE

LAND WHERE SANTA CRUZ ONCE STOOD, WITH THE

FABLE OF THE MISSION BELLS

Starting from Carmel By the Sea there follows a
series of marine pictures that few other countries in the
world can offer. Most of the way one skirts the shore
where the waves come in slowly as though hungering
for calm, as Shelley puts it. Then as if in a temper of
disappointment they burst with great uproar "up and
down the long keyboard of the beach," or in more serene
mood pulse and purr along the coast where the silent
cypresses, wind-twisted in fantastic contortions, stoop
low and cling close to the earth in desperate hope of
holding ground against the tempest and the sea.

Further along, numberless seal and bird rocks lift
their heads above the ocean, that a mile or two beyond
beats in winter fury against the point of pines. But
Spring brings quiet to this extreme edge of the dunes,
and with the gentle breezes come thousands of butterflies
that cluster so thickly on the sweet-smelling pines that

168

californian trails, intimate guide to the old missions 169

the branches bend beneath their weight. In Summer
fogs may be in possession of the lower levels: here they
will crawl in undulating lines among the shifting, chang-
ing sand hills or perhaps spiral skyward like smoke.

Over high cliffs, through Pacific Grove, where the
virgin forests glide down to the shore, between rocks and
branches, winds the road Into the quaint, crooked streets
of Monterey — right past the home of Senorita Bonafacio,
where still grows the Sherman Rose. Captain William
Tecumseh Sherman, so the story runs, was deeply in
love with Senorita Maria, and when unexpected orders
took him East he brought as a parting gift a beautiful
rose bush to plant in her garden, saying that so long as
It grew he would be faithful and by the time that it
bloomed she would be his bride. Together they planted
the rose, vowing to remain true to each other. The
rose blooms year after year In fadeless beauty, but
Senorita Maria, worn and withered. Is still unwed.

Still swinging along the shore one gets a taste of many
of the things that make California so individual. A
barren coast, with a wilderness of exotic palms and garden
fields that have broken into a foam of flowers — surging
over porches, gates and roofs, down streets and roads,
in a glory of color, sweetening the miles. WatsonvIUe
is the center of the big apple orchards and if it be Spring-
time, they, too, make another vast bridal bouquet.

After that to come suddenly into the presence of those

170 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

mighty trees, whose trunks leap three hundred feet
toward the sun, is unforgettable. As the soft twilight
filters through the closely interlocked branches, swaying
in the wind, the eye of imagination glimpses some won-
derful old-world cathedral even as the ear of fancv catches
the hush of music.

This is not El Camino Real, for all mission land-
marks have long gone from Santa Cruz as though they
never had been, and the King's Highway from Monterey
turns toward San Juan Bautista and Northward to
Santa Clara.

But no true lover of nature will stay away on that
account.

SANTA CRUZ

It was on September 22, 1791, within sight of the
surging ocean that Santa Cruz was founded. And when
at sunrise, bells were swung over a bending branch and
rung In the presence of the gathered savages, who showed
no fear of the white man and apparently no terror at the
thundering of the guns fired at the elevation of the cross,
it seemed as though perhaps the true significance of
the holy emblem was somehow known to this primitive
folk, as the sign of the cross goes back to a very remote
period, and from the earliest time has had a symbolic
religious meaning — all evil spirits from the dawn of the
world being afraid of the sign.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 171

St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, on her
voyage to Jerusalem, was the one who found the cross.
As a heavenly revelation had given her confidence that
she would be able to discover the Saviour's tomb, she had
vowed to rid the holy sepulchre of the accumulations of
rubbish heaped upon it and to destroy the pagan buildings
profaning the site. In the excavations that followed,
three crosses were found, and all were puzzled as to how
they should distinguish the Saviour's cross from that of
the two thieves. But joining in prayer to God for help,
the true cross was declared, for a woman at the point of
death was brought to the cross of the two thieves and
made to touch them, one after the other, but to no pur-
pose, and then she was carried to her Saviour's cross and
was immediately conscious that her sickness was removed.

"0 Crux ave spes unica^^ — ("Hail thou Cross, our
only hope; behold the wood of the cross upon which the
Saviour of the world was extended; let us come and
adore.")

After considerable delay, as the needed church orna-
ments were not on hand and they could not go ahead
until they borrowed them, the cornerstone of the Santa
Cruz church was laid with the usual ceremony. A cross
was first planted on the ground where the altar was to be,
and the salt and water to exorcise the evil spirits, were
blessed. First taking the salt, the priest prays that it
may have sufficient influence to destroy the malice of

172 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
Satan. Next he takes the water, that its virtue, Hke
the salt, may be able to destroy the power of the devil
and his angels, after which he places the salt in the form
of a cross within the vessel of water, and sings "Set O
Lord a mark of salvation on this place. Do not suffer
the destroying angel to enter into it," all the while sprink-
ling the spot where the cross stands. Finally addressing
himself to God in prayer through the mediation of the
particular saint to whom the church is consecrated, he
blesses the cornerstone in the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Ghost.

Despite so glorious a birth, the mission early sickened
and died, due largely to the evil effects of the pueblo
Branciforte, established by Marques de Branciforte,
viceroy of Mexico, who thus thought to immortalize his
name. But the settlers were all of the vagabond and
criminal class: two Spaniards, one Mestizo, two Negroes,
eight Mulattoes, nine Indians and a Chinaman— ^a
mysterious tangle of all kinds of available ancestry, and
a compound of many simples, as Jacques says of his
Melancholy. It was a scandal to the country and a
deathblow to the mission. The padres bitterly com-
plained that the bad example of these dissolute settlers
compelled them to severely discipline their Indian
children much more frequently than usual, as they
absented themselves from prayers, refused to work and
ran away at every opportunity.

Mo-^t of the Indians profited nothing by being repri-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 173

manded and had to be wliipped. Curiously enough, when
whipped they had the choice of a scourge of rawhide
or one of stinging hazel twigs, which was appHed to the
culprit, stretched face downward on the ground. All
severe punishments were administered within the guard
house, but slight misdemeanors were corrected every
Sunday after mass with six or eight lashes, after which the
sinner went in submission to kiss the hand of the padre,
who watched from the church door. After being pun-
ished, one of the Indians is said to have torn off his shirt
and flung it at the feet of the priest, saying: "Padre,
take back thy Christianity," but most of them accepted
a dozen blows with indifference, absolute, yet hardly to
be wondered, considering the extreme torture they
underwent as boys, whipped with nettles until their
skins were enflamed to rawness, and then carried to a
nest of stinging ants and laid on top while the insects
were annoyed with sticks to render them more furious.
When able to suffer all this with patience, the boy was
considered a man.

The old mission buildings have now disappeared com-
pletely— and the convict settlement also that helped to
bring about the downfall.

MISSION BELLS

Henry Fitch, though a young sailor of Puritan fore-
fathers, led the same heedless, daredevil life as most sea
folk, and was always in love with some pretty face. But

174 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

when he met the beautiful Dona Josefa, whose great
dreamy eyes were filled with the joy of life, he knew that
at last he had seen the only face in all the world, and at
once resolved that if it were possible he would make her
his wife. Learning to his great surprise that it was
considered improper in this Spanish land to ask for a
lady's hand in person, he had to content himself with
sending the regulation letter to Joaquin Carrillo, her
father, making his request, and then to pass the ten
days of waiting, demanded by etiquette before a reply
would be sent.

The parents, though greatly doubting the wisdom of
marriage with a foreigner, reluctantly gave their consent,
and preparations were made for an early wedding. The
appointed day finally came and the finest horse in the
country was saddled, and Fitch took up before him his
future God-mother, and the future God-father took up
the bride before him and away galloped the four at full
speed. The women of the wedding party, in wagons
decorated with colored silken handkerchiefs and flowers,
trailed after, while all the men slowly cantered along on
horseback. Glad shouts and the firing of muskets an-
nounced their arrival at the church.

Immediately the bridal couple, followed by brides-
maids, groomsmen, witnesses and friends, approached
the altar and the two lovers knelt before the waiting
padre. But hardly had they done so when Dona Joscfas'

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 175

uncle, the legal witness to the wedding, In a loud voice
withdrew his consent to this union of a heretic and a
daughter of the true church, making it impossible for
the padre to proceed with the ceremony, even though
his sympathies were all with the young people, as he
amply proved when the dejected pair later came to
him for advice and help. He it was who told them of
other countries where no such difficulties existed, even
assisting them in the elopement planned by their friends,
and personally placing Dona Josefa in charge of the ship
captain's wife, a very human little body who mothered
this lonely, timid girl all during the long voyage to South
America, even remaining In Peru so that she could stand
at her side in the old Cathedral, where she was given in
holy matrimony to the man of her choice.

After spending nearly two years in New England the
young bride, who had married against her parents' wishes,
longed for a reconciliation, and indued her husband to
take both herself and her baby boy on the long journey
back to the land of her birth. Immediately on arrival
Fitch was arrested, as having violated the laws of the
territory and his wife was taken to the home of her
parents in disgrace. The little pueblo was all agog with
excitement. Never before had such a thing occurred,
though the law forbidding marriage to foreigners had
long been on the statute books. Morning, noon and
night this heretical marriage was the subject of conver-

176 CALIFCRNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

sation in every household, until It became necessary to
convene an ecclesiastical court to pass upon the legality
of the wedding. After a long session with many argu-
ments pro and con, the court decided that the m.i.iTiage
was valid, but considering the great scandal caused by
Fitch, he was condemned in penance and as reparation
to present a bell to the church.

Thus the mission got its first bell.

CHAPTER XVI

BACK AGAIN TO THE ROYAL HIGHWAY AND THE INTERESTING
STORY OF SAN JUAN BAUTISTA

MONTEREY TO SAN JUAN

Back at Salinas again, the "T" in the road extends
one arm in the direction of Monterey, the other towards
San Juan, just beyond those hazy mountains, scarcely
seven miles away.

In the near distance is Fremont Peak, the highest of
the Gabilan Range. Gabilan, by the way, is a corruption
of the Spanish Gavilan, meaning hawk, expressive of
height. This was the peak ascended by Captain John
Fremont in defiance of the Mexican authorities who had
ordered him to leave the territory. As the explorer
looked down from his point of vantage, and saw the war-
like preparations directed against him, he wrote his well-
known historic message. ''I am making myself as strong
as possible, with the intention that if we are unjustly
attacked, we will fight to extremity and refuse quarter,
trusting to our country to avenge our deaths." Then
throwing up earthen works around his camp he raised the

177

178 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Stars and Stripes — for the first time on Californian soil:
in effect an act of war, for which it is quite impossible to
find adequate defense, except on the theory that Fremont
had been sent into the country for the deliberate purpose
of making trouble. The remains of the breast works
overgrown with weeds and even the stump of the tree
on which the flag was raised, can still be seen. Clematis
hangs its long scaling ladder over the escarpment and
the abatis is filled by scrub oak and manzanlta.

The view from here Is superb. To the South is the
Salinas Valley — the largest in the coast range; on the
West is Monterey Bay, whose ceaseless ocean rumble is
muffled by distance; while San Juan Valley, called the
most beautiful, rolls far northward. The beauty of the
whole thing is overpowering. The poet that lives in
nearly every soul arouses within you and you feel like
withdrawing to that valley nook or peaked promontory
to commune with Nature. But restrain yourself, because
out from a rocky somewhere will crawl a real estate
agent to ask how you like the climate and take one dollar
down as a first payment on some fruit ranch. And not
so far-fetched is this, for in the days of frenzied land
scheming — not entirely ended — the accepted program
in California was to take from any optimistic buyer
whatever small percentage of the purchase price he might
be able to give, and then abandon him to his devices,
bad enough at times, though again and again with that

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 179
phenomenal and singular fertility of the Californian soil
the seemingly worthless earth would sprout masses of
tomato vines that would grow (so they say) 19 feet high,
forcing the astonished farmer to pick his "fruit" from a
step) ladder!

The polished highway runs through the center of the
town of San Juan, whose only too apparent commercial
scale of values gives no hint of the poetry of the plaza,
just one short block away, where as if wafted on the
magic carpet of the mythical Persian, one is transported
to another time and another world. Here was staged
much of California's romantic history.

There lingers here more of the atmosphere of the
olden times than is to be found in any other place in
California. Locust trees wall it about. Sunlight fills
it, and shadow, and quietness. It is the sleepiest,
dreamiest place in the world, an authentic relic of bygone
days. It seems that Mrs. Helen Jackson, visiting it
some years ago, selected San Juan as the setting for her
"Ramona," but some garrulous, gossipy old woman, not
being able to drag out the secret of why she especially
wanted her house, refused to rent, allowing her to depart,
and so San Juan lost its one chance for novelistic fame.

The first adobe, as usual, was built to garrison the
soldiers. It is now the Plaza Hotel, and across the entire
length of the facade, at the second floor level runs an
overhanging wood balcony, acting as hallway for all the

180 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

second-Story rooms which open upon it with shuttered
door. Di^fficult to reaHze that in this sleepy plaza were
staged so many of the gaieties of the "golden days."
But it's the same hotel from whose side balcony the
aristocrats looked down upon the revelings below, out-
wardly little changed, though the passing automobilist
is now the only guest and the feminine heads that peer
from out the latticed doors no longer wear the mantilla
that added such interest to the ugliest face and made
a Madonna out of every pretty one; but instead only the
'dusty motor bonnet covered with fluttering veils.

The earliest hotel registers have been carefully pre-
served, and they bear the historic names of many a
celebrity from both the Spanish and later Mexican
regimes. There is something rather sad in this con-
sciousness of having fallen from high estate and being
obliged to bolster up one's pride by talking of what used
to be.

Nearby is the Castro House, even more attractive,
withdrawn as it is behind its line of trees. Here the
"Rose of the Rancho," the beautiful daughter of the
house, used to dance the Bamba, that most difficult of
Spanish dances, liked above all by Senorita Castro, who
with a clever flirting of her silken shawl could easily
hint at the handsome roundings of her naked arms and
draw admiration to her tiny feet. Here it was when
Commander Sloat made his memorable landing at

SAN JUAN HAUTISTA MISSION

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 181
Monterey, raising the Stars and Stripes over the Custom
House, signalHzIng the passing of CaHfornia from Mexican
rule. Here meetings were held with General Castro
and excited speeches were made advocating revolutionary-
methods that brought for the f rst time the war-like fife
and drumming to the peaceful life of the inhabitants of
the old mission town.

At nightfall the loiterers still leisurely stroll about
the plaza to be stared at — and then in turn to sit beneath
the locust boughs to stare.

It gives a feeling of peace, this old Spanisb-Mexxan
town. And it makes a fitting home for the Mission of
San Juan Bautista.

SAN JUAN BAUTISTA

When one pauses long enough to remember that the
word "mission" comes from the Latin "wz^o," meaning
"I send," San Juan Bautista — St. John the Baptist — is
peculiarly fitting as a mission nam.e. Yet San Juan is
the fifteenth pearl of the mission chaplet, not having
been founded until June 24, 1797, on St. John's Day,
when it was dedicated to that glorious precursor of Jesus
Christ, who went before the face of the Lord to prepare
his ways, by giving knowledge of salvation unto the
people for the remission of their sins.

Work upon the various buildings was immediately
begun and the church cornerstone set in place in 1803,

182 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

though the finished building was not dedicated until
1812. It took fifteen years and hundreds of workmen to
complete the task. Just how many hundreds it is for
the mathematically-inclined to determine. All that one
requires is the patience to count the tiles and adobes in
the buildings and then, with 40 adobes or 31 tiles per
diem per Indian as divisor, the problem is simple; for
the number of adobes to be made a day was fixed by the
authorities after a strike of the Indian workers who at
first were compelled to make 50, soldiers standing by
until the "task" was finished. All might have gone well
had not the plutocrats of the day enlarged the adobe
moulds when the Indians revolted. But then the govern-
ment had to take a hand. So you see, history only
keeps on repeating itself. Adobes were made of mud,
straw or some rough grass, mixed with the blood of
bulls or liquified manure, thoroughly kneaded by hand or
foot, moulded and dried in the sun. Interesting to see
imprinted on some of these adobe bricks the foot-marks
of wolves and mountain lions who after nightfall, curi-
ously inclined, prowled about and over the strange
objects left out to dry.

The original plan of this mission was typical of them
all; an enclosing court, with the church at one corner;
but the church differs architecturally from all other
mission churches, having not only a chancel separated
from the nave by a great arch, but transepts as well as

e'

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 183

nave. The transept arches are to-day filled in, except
the two nearest the altar which according to the resident
priest, have been blocked up since the first earthquake
in 1812 cracked all the adobe walls and compelled every-
body— friars and Indians, to sleep out-of-doors for safety.

Appropriation by covetous Mexico, amiably called
secularization, was claimed to be a success here at San
Juan, as the Indians made tolerably good use of their
freedom; but the marks of that destroying period will
require many years and much money if they are ever
to be efi^aced. The church proper has been dismantled
and is no longer in use for services, though in the chancel
still stands the gaudily-colored reredos with six eyeless
sockets where once were figures of saints shedding light
upon the world. This reredos is credited to one Thomas
Doak, a Yankee sailor man, hailing from Boston, the
first American to settle ofiicially in California. Ap-
parently he was the forebear of California's much dis-
cussed cheap labor, for in comparison with him a real
artist who asked sixty cents a day for the same work was
considered a grasping monopolist. As the records have
it, Thomas Doak, by the help of God and some muchados
— Indian boys — achieved the altar decorations at San
Juan Bautista.

Still fixed to the side-wall is the quaint old box of a
pulpit, from which Father Arroyo is said to have
thundered at the Indians in thirteen native dialects —

184 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

one hopes not all at the same time, though the parish
books give the names of forty-two Indian tribes belonging
to this mission, speaking twenty-nine dialects and thir-
teen different languages.

A jolly old soul was Father Arroyo de la Cuesta, who
lightened, with many a whimsical comment, the tedious
labor of preserving in book form these various Indian
dialects. "The best way," he writes, "to see and hear
a new dialect is to associate mostly with old ladies —
and some young ones — for you must see it as well as hear
it, as in talking it is necessary to mouth your speech,
working the teeth just as you would when eating, and,"
he adds, "after half an hour's talking I get hungry."
Again he writes that "a verb with no past tense is above
my comprehension, but I will ask God's help and will
learn, though it takes bloody tears." Once he learned
the language of a tribe he would at once teach the simplest
of the religious truths, finally bringing the whole tribe
under the protecting cloak of the church. But the first
language of this padre was a little music box which he
would load on the back of a sturdy mule, and carry to
some faraway Indian settlement; there he would set it
up In some prominent place and rapidly turn the crank.
When the Indians first heard the strange noises they fell
upon their faces with fear, but as the music continued
their fear left them and they began to enjoy the sweet
sounds, ending by slowly approaching and gathering

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 185
about the padre, listening to the wonderful song-box with
delight. Then Padre Arroyo, just at the right moment,
always turning the crank, would reload the mule and,
like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, wend his way back to the
mission, all the Indians following after.

This is probably the very organ given to the mission
San Carlos by Vancouver on his second trip, as it is
of English make, being built in London in the early
1700's. After years of use the organ lost its voice and
lay neglected in the mission storeroom until a wandering
tinker, announcing that he was a music tuner, asked for
something to eat. Put to work on the old music box he
brought back to life its long disused voice, and to-day
among the mission relics it still speaks, somewhat huskily
to be sure and even hesitatingly, as if feeling ashamed at
being forced to play "Go to the Devil" amid such holy
surroundings. Probably none of the old padres was able
to read English, and so In all blissful Ignorance they
would crank out "The Siren's Call" or "The Hungarian
Chicken" with deep religious solemnity.

Of all missions San Juan is probably the richest in
relics, and here in the museum, just alongside the old
English organ, may be seen a crude reed dovecote that
once hung on the church celling, and from which on
Whitsunday or Pentecost was released a white dove to
hover over the kneeling Indians below, commemorating
the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles. You will

186 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

be shown gorgeous vestments worth a fortune, but which
no fortune can buy. Then a copper bowl fluted like a
shell, formerly suspended over the hand-hewn stone font
in the Baptistry, so arranged that the holy water would
drip, drop by drop, on the Indians' heads bowed for the
sacramental cleansing. It is quaintly recorded that in
this bowl an Indian girl lost her pagan name, being
christened Jesusa.

You will find much mass music in picturesque volumes,
faultlessly written, with each voice Indicated In a different
color, so that some might raise their hearts to God in
red notes of love, while others sang their sorrows in
notes of blue. What a reflection upon modern ways and
manners that these vellum-bound books and other relics
must now be kept behind wire netting to protect them
from destructive fingers that Itch to write their names
on sacred books or to break off the noses and ears of
Saintly statues and carry them away as souvenirs.

But "to-morrow we die," and just outside the Bap-
tistry where all were born In Christ, is the consecrated
ground where thousands In their last sleep He In the arms
of Holy Church, shaded by century-old olive trees still
"flaunting" their gray-green foliage. Never working
mentally, never worrying, always fatalists, the Indians
were seldom grey at the time a white man usually went
to his grave. The official records make mention of
several over 120 years of age. One old neophyte was

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 187

honored by being buried In habit, hood and cordon of
San Francis, as he had bequeathed to the padre eight
dollars and all his poultry. Another entry tells how
Christian burial was denied to Manuel, the husband
of Monica, since he made himself unworthy by his scan-
dalous habits, being constantly intoxicated with pispibata.
It seems as though all mankind would have their alcohol
In some form, and the Indians of California insisted upon
their pispibata, a mixture made of powdered calcined
glass, wild tobacco juice and cherries, which was stirred
over a slow fire until it almost solidified. Into this mess
the savages would dip their forefingers which they licked
with a smack of satisfaction. It is horribly powerful,
equal, they say, to a mixture of rum and opium, if one
can imagine what that could be, and after two or three
"licks" an Indian would fall back dead-drunk — or just
dead, if a little too much had been taken. Strange to
say, the wild tobacco plant that paralyzed their bodies
and took their souls into the realms of supernatural
happiness is still growing just along the wall of the

cemetery where so many of them now lie in their last
sleep.

All Indians believed that the soul lived after deatn,

but just as the Japanese, that the spirits needed help on

their journey, and so the graves at San Juan are littered

with all sorts of rubbish which their childlike minds

thought might be useful.

188 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Along the wall of the cemetery Is a bit of original El
Camino Real, the only strip that remains just as it was
when the padres toiled over the dusty way. Beyond, out
in the valley are a few of the old pear trees, a remnant of
the once vast orchard that In the late fall clothed this
vale with a carnival garb of flaming red and orange.

Lingering aromas of former days!

Greed — Mexico by name — hiding beneath the specious
cloak of justice appears upon the scene with an itching
desire to get her hand upon the rich Pious Fund.

This fund was an endowment intended for use in the
spread and maintenance of the Catholic religion in
California, and the mother-country, Spain, started the
bad example of misuse when Don Caspar de Portola and
Junlpero Serra were sent to the California coast In 1769 —
a purely political move on the part of Spain to prevent
the Russians from acquiring territory. Yet Spain labeled
It religious, saying: "May the Lord guide this expedition
to success as the undertaking Is entirely His." Bearing
this religious tag Spain claimed It was only just to defray
the expenses from the Pious Fund.

Like mother like daughter, only more so, for Mexico
was never satisfied with merely drawing against the
Income, but boldly confiscated principal and all at the
first opportunity, asserting there was no longer necessity
for such a fund, as the Indians were already converted

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 189
and now needed to have their freedom. Of course, they
gave the Indians some httle land and a few cows, but
ignorance, indolence and love of gambling soon got these
possessions away. The mission Indians half civilized
and half savage were always the victims. A more pitiful
sight, says an early writer, has seldom been seen than
these helpless, dependent creatures suddenly deprived
of their teachers and protectors. Some of the friars
stayed at the missions to the end of their lives, able to
do little except through example, while others, unable to
bear the humiliation and the sense of failure, fled the
country.

Father Peyri was early disheartened. Zealous though
he was and willing to nourish his savage young with
his own life blood, he was constantly being met with In-
surmontable difficulties. Shorn of all power he was not
allowed even to lift up his voice In protest, much less to
oppose the 111 treatment accorded his former charges, who
before his very eyes were robbed of their land, cheated out
of their little money, lured on to drink and vice, and then
hired out to farming overseers who maltreated and
exploited them in every possible way without a single
restraining hand. With no means of his own, living on
the charity of the government, doled out by the agent in
charge only when the whim seized him, Father Peyri
could see little hope In the future, and believing he
might be of more use elsewhere, planned to leave the

190 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

country. Wishing to leave without the Indians' knowl-
edge he stole off secretly at night, riding to the nearest
port in hopes of finding a vessel to carry him away.
Unaccustomed as were all the Franciscan Fathers to
horseback riding, It was late the following morning before
he reached the desired harbor, and long before that the
Indians had discovered his departure and almost crazed
with grief, at once saddled their horses and raced at full
speed in the direction which doglike they knew Father
Peyri had taken. With unerring instinct they rode
straight to the beach where just beyond the last line of
breakers rolled a brig at anchor. Even as they ap-
proached sails were being unfurled and preparations
made for departure. Soon the ship wore about to catch
the early afternoon breeze astern and as she turned, the
Indians caught sight of a well-known figure In brown
standing at the bow. With one accord they jumped
from their horses and plunged into the surf. Strong
swimmers though they were, It seemed an impossible
task to overhaul the boat now fast gaining headway.
Two, however, managed to reach the vessel's side and
begged so hard to be taken aboard that unable to with-
stand their pleadings. Father Peyri gave consent.

Fate decreed that this boat should sail to Italy where
she arrived after a tedious four months' voyage. During
all the long waking hours when not at his devotions,
Father Peyri instructed these two Indian lads, pouring

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 191

out all the treasures of his mind with so genuine a fervor
that the seed of knowledge blossomed into goodly fruit.
On reaching Rome one of the Indians elected to become
a priest, and for many years he lived near the Vatican,
a sainted savage.

CHAPTER XVII

ALONG THE WAY TO SAN JOSE AND THE MISSION SANTA
CLARA, DEDICATED TO THE POOR CLARES.

Speeding along "on high," that will surely carry our
motor to Gllroy, twelve miles away, in less than half an
hour, the picture of the road, as it was, say seventy-five
years ago, inevitably flashes before one's eyes. Father
Palou wrote that it was a good road, but that must have
been religiously speaking, for he was then traveling his
"path of glory," and he only meant that through this
level valley Nature had interposed no obstacle and had
left an open route for all wild creatures, two or four
footed — a trail that may have existed for centuries.

How the procession changes with the passing years!
First came the pioneer missionaries, the Franciscan
Fathers, humbly traveling afoot from mission to mission,
then the care-free Spanish couriers on gaily accoutered
horses, ^ possibly followed by slow-moving strings of
stately Spanish mules or balky little Mexican burros,
those beasts of burden that carried the good padres'
exports of hide and tallow. Later, Indian herders with

192

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 193

droves of cattle and companies of Spanish soldiers with
royal officials — even brigands, perhaps. Again later, the
stout careta with its ponderous running gear propelled by
oxen, with yokes firmly lashed behind wide-spreading
horns. Now the motor car which in less than half an
hour travels the same distance that a careta in 1851
leaving Gilroy at midnight would not cover before high
mass the next morning — ten hours for a twelve-mile trip.

At Gilroy is found another of those "largest seed
farms in the world," which says it with flowers to the
uttermost parts of the earth — with immaculate white
roses to the queens of Purity; passion flowers for those
who would express hatred, or jasmine and red pinks to
the coquettes and the jealous ones of the world.

Beyond Gilroy is apple orchard country, where the
first prize for the most tempting apple most appropriately
went to the little town of Eden.

Six miles further is San Jose, particularly interesting
as the first town established in California, and not only
the first town, but the site where the first government of
the state was established under American rule. Accord-
ing to Markham, the early days were happy-go-lucky
ones, when It was felt more necessary to strum the guitar
and shuffle the cards than irrigate the ground and dis-
courage weeds. But then, the country being under
military rule, the corporal of the guard might fall upon
any shirking farmer and the hands that loved to wander

194 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

over Instruments of music were left dangling from the
port-holes of the public pillory, and the feet that loved to
glide In the old Castllllan dances were clamped In Irons^
But San Jose has long ago lived down those vagabond
days and Is now a thriving city, Its twenty square miles,
beautiful with broad avenues and shady walks all lined
with paradise roses In which It Is said thorns were un-
known until after the "fall," though mythology asserts
that they were the fault of Cupid who, when ecstatically
kissing a new-blown rose, was stung by a bee thus rudely
awakened from sweet sleep In the heart of the flower.
Venus, to placate her petulant Cupid, had to string his
bow with captured bees and plant along the rose stem
the "stings" torn from them.

San Jose is well known as the home of the Lick Observ-
atory, where lies the proof that a man of science can at
the same time be a man of sentiment; for the donor of
this observatory, by will, decreed that at his death he
should be burled directly beneath the telescope, through
which in life he had gazed for over twenty years, day and
night.

Between San Jose and the Mission Santa Clara runs
the Alameda, a grove of poplars planted by the same
fathers who built the mission, so as to prevent the San
Joselans from offering the hot sun as an excuse for absent-
ing themselves from church service. Thanks to their
protecting branches the people would arrive at the

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 195

mission cool and refreshed in a fitting mood to listen to
the heated diatribes of Padre Catala.

SANTA CLARA

The great plain in which now stands the Mission
Santa Clara, was one time covered with thick lush grass
through which swarmed immense herds of elk, deer and
antelope, attracting the attention of the padres from
the very first. Let it not be forgotten that the Francis-
cans, while men of deep spirituality, were at the same
time possessed of a keen insight into material possibilities.
Every one of the missions, from San Diego to Sonoma,
lies in some beautiful fertile valley through which runs
an ever present supply of water; and the wealth of the
missions all came from the ability of the padres to scien-
tifically supply this water to the land, making the waste
places bloom, over night. Into fields of green. They
must have carried a divining rod, for the Santa Clara
Valley is famed throughout the world. It is, probably,
the richest in the state, bearing great harvests of grain,
while every species of European fruit thrives luxuriantly
in it.

Early in 1777 a chapel was erected and sanctified,
and as soon as Father Murguia, the associate missionary,
arrived, the church itself was begun. Padre Murguia
acting as architect as well as builder. Stone by stone he
watched the church rise to completion, little realizing

196 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIOMS

that this loving care and unceasing labor were being
squandered upon his own mausoleum. Only four days
after the church was dedicated, God touched Padre
Murguia with His finger and he still sleeps beneath the
tile flooring of the sacred edifice.

It is said that this is the site first selected for the
Mission San Francisco, and that a cross was raised and
actually dedicated to the Padre Serafico, though later,
with true Spanish politeness, rededicated to the Madre
Serafica, Santa Clara, foundress of the first community
of Franciscan nuns. Perhaps bored by the vain frivolities
of her aristocratic life and falling under the wonderful
influence of Saint Francis, she was seized with the holy
desire to become a sister of the church. Going to a con-
vent she fell on her knees and implored them to receive
her. In a paroxysm of devotion she tore off her jewels,
divested herself of her silken brocades and velvets and
bowed her head to the shears that were to cut off her
beautiful long hair. A coarse grey habit was hastily
flung over her and trembling with joy she found herself
enrolled in the ranks of the champions of Poverty, where
she became as famous for her austerity and piety as
before for her wit and beauty. Her religious title is
Santa Clara de Assisi, Virgen y Matriarca de su Cele-
berima Religion, a somewhat high-sounding title for the
head of the "poor Clares."

Chance decreed that Santa Clara was to be materially

w ■; W-. ■iT'* : ■ :*-.'n

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 197

benefited by the edict requiring the padres to assume the
temporahties. When they hopefully set to work to gather
up the fragments remaining from secularization they soon
discovered that the old mission was destined to become
a most prosperous parish church. In 1851 they suc-
ceeded in establishing the Santa Clara college, chartered
with all the rights and privileges of a university, which
soon grew to such large proportions that it was necessary
to either tear down the old mission or renovate it out
of all semblance to its former self. The hand of the
restorer has been somewhat guided by reverence for the
past, and there still lingers for the sympathetic seeker a
slight trace of the ancient flavor, despite the two modern
dormitories winging the church on either side. Fronting
the mission is a memorial cross boxing within it the
original crucifix, and to the casual observer the interior
is much as it was in the old days, with many of the old
furnishings and sacred relics still to be seen.

No one better deserves a name in history and a place
in heaven than Padre Magin Catala, to whom are popu-
larly attributed certain miraculous powers, on the strength
of which the church of Santa Clara was recommended
for beatification. He loved to engage in hand-to-hand
conflicts with his arch enemy, Satan, at whom he would
scream, and spar with his fists until the devil was so
frightened that he dare not come near him. One day,
while "blessing the country with his presence" he un-

198 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
thinkingly walked out among the wild cattle. With eyes
fixed upon his Holy Book, his soul communed with
heaven. "Have a care, good Father," shouted a neo-
phyte. "He for whom God cares, my son, himself need
have no care," answered Padre Magin, and he raised his
eyes only to encounter a threatening mad bull. But he
at once lowered his book and continued to read. When
the beast bellowed menacingly the padre began to sing a
hymn. Enraged but the more the beast tore up the earth
with his pawing, throwing dirt on the sacred vestments
of the priest, and with head down charged at him. All
held their breath, fearing the good padre would be gored
to death. "Peace! peace! malignant spirit," said the
padre, and the mad bull immediately stopped, dropped
his head and trotted away, overcome by the power of
God as evidenced in his servant.

It is told of the same good padre that once when
millions of locusts settled on the fields and orchards of
Santa Clara, eating away every trace of verdure, he
ordered a half-dozen of them to be caught and brought
to him. At once putting on his vestments and placing
the locust before him he recited a few prayers and then
sent them back to the fields from whence they were
brought. In a few moments all those millions of locusts
rose in a body and flew away plunging into the sea, and
the next day the beach was covered three inches deep
with dead locusts washed ashore by the waves.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 199
When the time came that will come to all of us he
asked two pious Indians to stay with him, telling them
that he would die that night. "Watch the heavens,"
he said, "and when you see the 'morning sky' appear,
let me know." With that he slept until aroused by one
of the Indians who whispered that the sky had appeared.
"It is time then for the priests to come and pray with
me," he answered. "The end is here."
And the finger of God touched him, too.

LA POSADA (the INn) AND LOS PASTORES (tHE SHEPHERDs)

In the days of Caesar Augustus there went forth a
decree that all the world should be enrolled and out of
Galilee into Judea came the Blessed Virgin and her
spouse, St. Joseph, to be inscribed for taxation. They
found Bethlehem so full of people, who had come from
all parts of the world for the same purpose, that they
wandered hither and yon without being able to gain
admittance to any inn or tavern. There being no room
for them in Bethlehem, they left the town and came to a
cave on the eastern hill, which served as a place of refuge
for the shepherds and their flocks, against the inclemency
of the weather. Here Mary and Joseph took shelter in
a manger.

At sunset on Christmas Eve the mission bells ring out
a merry chime and all the windows glow with streaming
light, but when night comes the lights are extinguished

200 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
and every window is dark. Then there is a sudden flare
as the neophytes gather within the quadrangle, each with
Hghted torch in hand. They quickly form in procession
and with a statue of the Blessed Virgin seated on an ass,
and another representing St. Joseph on foot, carried In
front, they start on a long march, singing of the wander-
ings of Joseph and Mary. With solemn step they make
the circuit of the inner court, then out through the big
gate and around the outside walls as far back to the
hills well beyond the mission confines, finally returning
to the front of the church which Is found dark and closed.
Joseph and Mary, In plaintive key, beg for admittance,
but a chorus of voices behind the door refuse to unlock
It. Then Mary and Joseph, always in song, complain
that the night Is bitterly cold and that the wind is blowing
fiercely. Again and again these unknown pilgrims ask
for admittance, and again and again they are refused.
At the last refusal, Mary, In a final verse, reveals the fact
that she is the Queen of Heaven, and the doors fly open
to the chant of the Rosary and the litany of the Blessed
Virgin.

Just before midnight, still with lighted torches In
hand, the procession moves to the altar, where bends the
Virgin Mother in wonder and love over her new-born babe.
"There's a song in the air,

There's a star In the sky.
There's a mother's deep prayer
And a baby's low cry."

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 201

Led by the Angel Michael, a company of shepherds
enter, dressed in sheepskin, with crooks in hand.
"Lo, peace on earth, glory be on high.

Listen, listen to the gladness of the cry."

Angels dressed in white with golden wings appear
upon the scene:

"Then to the long expectant earth,
Glad angels come to greet His birth."

In the wake of the angels comes a venerable white-
bearded hermit with tattered missal and long, sin-chastis-
ing lash, while sneaking in behind are seven imps, repre-
senting the seven deadly sins, dressed in long, black
cloaks. They endeavor to hinder the work of redemp-
tion, for this Is a mimic battle between Lucifer and the
Archangel St. Michael. As soon as the hermit, beguiled
by the tempter, stakes his soul and loses, Lucifer, em-
boldened by success, tries his wiles upon the holy shep-
herds, but there he meets Michael, who recognizes him,
and quailing under the eye of that invincible angel,
Lucifer is obliged to fly.

The end comes in the complete victory of the good
angels over the evil spirits, with the fulfilment of the
prophetic message of glad tidings brought to the shep-
herds.

"I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people, for unto us a child is born; unto us a son
is given; and his name shall be called Wonderful, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

202 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
It was St. Francis, Patriarch of Assisi, the most
beloved among the saints of God, who, with the consent
of Pope Honorius, made the first scenic representation of
the place of nativity, constructing the first crib and
grouping around it the figures of the Blessed Virgin, St.
Joseph and the ass, the ox and the shepherds who came
to adore the new-born Saviour. So what more natural
than that his followers, the pioneer Franciscan Fathers,
should piously teach their Indian children not only the
Posada, in preparation for the great festival of Christmas,
but as well the miracle play of Los Pastores.

CHAPTER XVIII

A LITTLE JOURNEY FROM SAN JOSE TO SAN JOSE, WITH A
RECITAL OF CALIFORNIA'S GREAT ROMANCE

FROM SAN JOSE TO SAN JOSE

Scarcely fifteen miles separates the city of San Jose
from the village of the Mission San Jose, yet in meaning
and influence the two are a century apart, and no one
can attempt to understand the division until well away
from the bustling turmoil of the modern city and out
amid the quiet of the vineyards and orchards, where the
roadside is bordered with heavenly yellow blossoms, the
great grandchildren, mayhap of those mustard seeds that
the Franciscan Fathers flung from side to side, as they
traveled, marking the trail for future wanderings.

In the sound of "Milpitas," the first village on the
way, there is a gentle music that at once softens the dis-
cord of the big city left behind, and attunes one to the
benedictions of this Eden land where men "live at peace
with the skies and at friends with the good green earth."
Just now the good green earth is a riot of color, a land of

203

204 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
fire as it was called in the early days when the pioneers
first saw it, ablaze with orange-colored poppies — that
most ardent blossom of the fields, of which Miller sings:
"The golden poppy is God's gold.
The gold that laughs not in the town,
But singing, laughing, freely spills
Its hoards far up the happy hills;
Far up, far down at every turn."
All leads one to remember that when the Te Deum
Laudamus of the mass was chanted at the foundation
of La Mision San Jose, it was within a booth adorned
from floor to ceiling with the many wild flowers with
which all the fields for miles about were prodigally
covered.

Only as a mission home could this little town have
continued to exist, shut out and cut off as it is from all
worldly influence.

All unconsciously perhaps those saintly Franciscan
Padres acted not alone as pioneers, but as promoters;
for whatever pious phrases might be on the lips of the
California governors, their pocketbooks were never
opened unless some political as well as religious object
was to be attained.

Governor Borica very frankly admitted that a mis-
sion at San Jose might convert the bay Indians and
permit him to reduce his soldier guard in numbers, saving

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 205
thousands of reals; and so far as the government was
concerned, that was the only reason for the foundation
in 1797 of Le Mislon del Gloriolslmo Patriarca Senor
San Jose — St. Joseph, foster-father of our Lord.

But this political goal on the part of the government
was not out of harmony with the religious aims of the
friars who found temporal discipline indispensible to the
best work of Christianization, as the Indians, being chil-
dren of fear, were at first always more strongly appealed
to by the glistening of the sword than by the voice of the
priests — so writes one of the fathers.

For this same reason it was deemed strategically wiser
to establish the mission in the foothills overlooking the
south end of the San Francisco Bay, some fifteen miles
north of the town which bears Its name, and which even
by Californians Is still believed to be the Mission home,
but to-day's little religious community Is known as the
Village of the Mission San Jose not wishing to be con-
fused with the worldly modern town of similar name.

As a frontier post the mission was constantly visited
by that roaming band of trappers which at the time
overran the West, and being as well the last safe retreat
for fugitives from justice, it brought into the ordinarily
spiritual routine a slight leaven of secular excitement that
spread its rumors to even far-away Salt Lake City, and
encouraged one of the mormon missionaries to believe
that here was good hunting ground for converts. But

206 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

polygamy was an old story to the California Indian, and
the mormon messenger being taught more than he could
teach, retired in discomfort.

At the time of its foundation San Jose was the nearest
mission to the Russian settlements and furnished them
with many of their needed supplies. In order to feed
them as well as their own hungry hordes, great fields of
wheat had to be cultivated, the mission Indians cutting
the ripened grain with sickles and carrying it on their
backs to the threshing corral, where the horses trampled
it out and the wind winnowed it. The cut grain was
spread on a level spot of hard ground, around which poles
were driven, forming a large circle; within this enclosure
were a number of cattle which were kept in constant
motion, threshing out the grain by pressure and incessant
stamping. All the methods of primitive days were still
employed by the mission fathers, for land was not even
plowed, though an upright metal-pointed stick fixed to a
beam was sometimes hauled across the ground. Seed
was thrown broadcast in time-honored fashion, brushed
in with branches of trees — with most wonderful results.
The mission records are responsible for the statement
that here at San Jose one hundred and twenty bushels
of wheat were scattered on unplowed ground, and simply
scratched in, yielding a harvest of seven thousand bushels
of grain.

To supply the enormous amount of meat needed.

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 207
weekly slaughters were necessary. Indians on horseback,
armed with knives, would be sent out to ride at full speed
over the grazing fields. When passing near an animal
one of the Indians would strike it with his knife in the
nerve at the nape of the neck, felling it with one blow.
Following these horsemen like a flock of hungry wolves,
came dozens of men on foot, who stripped off the hides.
Next came others who cut up the meat and the funeral
procession ended with a swarm of Indian women who
gathered the fats in leather hampers. A field after such
a slaughter looked like Waterloo after the charge of the
Old Guard. Scattered about would be three or four car-
loads of skulls, ribs, spines and leg bones, which later
would be piled up outside the corrals.

Out of this material wealth grew a more than usually
prosperous mission, and it was not until 1840 that the
secularization decline set in. Though restored to tem-
poral control as early as 1843, the great herds had disap-
peared and the splendid fields were barren. The original
church, once crouching at the foot of the hills had entirely
disappeared, an earthquake completing the ruin begun
by secularization. A modern steepled building rises from
out the wreck, but it strikes a sharply discordant note
in a one-time perfect harmony. Why is it that a beautiful
religion cannot always be housed in a beautiful home.''
How does it come about that these messengers of Christ,
unwordly and without experience, were able to surround

208 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

themselves with a religious atmosphere entirely lacking
in most of the church-buildings conceived by architec-
turally trained minds?

All that remains of the mission is a wreck of a one-
time cloister fronted by a rickety corridor without arches,
upheld by posts of wood, covered with climbing roses?
and known as the "old adobe."

But just behind Is a clump of gnarled, dwarfed trees
that point the way to a small but once celebrated olive
garden which, big as this world is, quite suffices as a
perpetual home for the Dominican Sisterhood. Here
women of eight different nationalities work together for
the happiness of the orphan children left in their care.

Running straight through this little garden, so at
peace with the quiet waters of the bay and the blue sky,
is a long avenue stationed with wooden shrines dedicated
to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and down it the
white-garbed sisters walk at their daily devotions.
"Telling four rosaries at each shrine
For their salvation and for thine."

Once there was a dear little white-haired lady here as
the Mother Superior. Her face was very sad. She
could never quite forget, for under the white of the
Dominican Sisterhood there lay a very human woman's
heart. Oh, certainly, every one who knows California
knows her story. Her world was small and she played a

A SISTER, CONVENT OF DOMINICANS, SAN JOSE

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 209

leading part in it. Then she was superbly beautiful,
in a beautiful land noted for its beautiful women, but no
one could hope to describe her exquisite grace of form
and delicacy of feature or the transparent texture of her
creamy skin through which the red blood glowed so
brilliantly.

To Baron Rezanov, straight from Arctic Russia where
he had passed a winter of deprivation and suffering with-
out sight of womankind, Concha Arguello must have
seemed a veritable vision of sweetness and grace. When
first he saw her she was dressed in dainty white, with a
delicate reboza of lace wrapt about her shoulders, and in
her flashing black hair there glowed a red rose. Small
wonder that even this cool, calculating Russian was cap-
tured by her beauty.

Russia, snowbound in the North, was turning with
longing eyes to this land of "stingless winters" and Czar
Paul had sent Rezanov to realize his dream of peaceful
conquest. Despite his insane political follies and almost
crazy reign. Emperor Paul had shown considerable
shrewdness in choosing his ambassador. He was strong-
willed, with the tenacity of purpose certain to carry to
success the delicate enterprise upon which he had ven-
tured, and at the same time a man of great gifts and fine
instincts hardly to be expected in a courtier of the dis-
solute court of Catharine, The Russians had already
encroached somewhat on the territory of California,

210 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS
establishing relations with the Indians by means of gifts.
Rezanov's purpose was to calm the fears of the Call-
fornians while gradually and insidiously securing a yet
firmer foothold. He well knew that his brawny, strap-
ping countrymen in a match for existence with indolent
new Spain would surely come out the victors, and he
looked upon the entire Pacific Coast as a future American
Russia. With a mind crowded by such ambitions, Rez-
anov landed at San Francisco.

It was a difficult moment for Don Luis Arguello,
brother of Concha and Commander-in-Chief at the San
Francisco Presidio, he was fearful of antagonizing power-
ful Russia, yet dreaded the free admittance of foreigners
into his defenseless country. But true to Spanish ances-
try he left the to-morrow to do its worst, doing to-day
everything that could be done to show courtesy to Rus-
sia's ambassador. And the very night of the arrival a
ball was given, where Concha and Rezanov met for the
first time.

That Concha should lose her heart to this distinguished
stranger, one of the few men of the great world she had
ever met, was an almost foregone conclusion, and to
Rezanov this youthful coquette was a revelation. He
permitted himself to fall in love, realizing that such an
alliance would further his schemes. But being of the
Oriental Catholic faith, he was a heretic in the eyes of
these western Catholics, and to marry Concha he must

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 211

needs get a dispensation from the Pope at Rome, the
consent of the King of Spain, as well as that of his own
Emperor Alexander who, since his departure from Petro-
grad, had been made Czar in place of the murdered Paul.
It meant a terribly long separation and a weary journey,
but love and ambition won the day, and Rezanov started
off on his quest for happiness and for the glory of his
country, filled with wondrous anticipations.

Months of exhausting travel followed, and those
thousands of miles on horseback with repeated boat
journeys over half-frozen seas finally sapped even his
wonderful vitality and stricken with Asiatic fever, his,
dream of empire and love days with beautiful Concha
burned to the socket, flickered and went out.

Two years passed before the news of his lonely death
on the far-away Siberian plains filtered its way southward,
and Concha was suddenly made aware that Life had
tricked and mocked her. As day followed day she began
to realize that only in the arms of the Church would she
ever recover the peace and happiness of which she had
dreamed, and she wore the habit of a Beata until it
became certain that she had found the inexhaustible
source of all love when she became the Bride of the
Church.

CHAPTER XIX

THE WONDERFUL VALLEY OF SANTA CLARA AND DOLORES,
THE MISSION OF SAN FRANCISCO

Spring in the Santa Clara Valley reveals the secret
hiding place of the long lost Garden of Eden. Its millions
of trees are all garlanded with a luminous color mist of
dimmest rose and warmest white, that surpasses even the
far-famed cherries of Japan. Sweetpeas, blanketing the
earth in great fields, fill the air with their perfume. This
is the very heart of blossomland, where one gets more
thrills to the acre than from any other land on earth.

Away back in 1792, Vancouver, visiting California,
with his good ship "Discovery," compared Santa Clara
to an English park huddling down between grizzly moun-
tains, that rise four thousand feet on either side. Pos-
sibly it was more pleasing and restful to the eye in its
native state than now when mosaiced into thousands of
orchards producing, as recently ofiicially estimated,
1 3 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,-
000 prunes. In the days of the gold frenzy it was the
vegetable back yard of the miners where any willing

212

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 213
man could coin gold if he worked for it — the only way
to coin it, according to some. One poor widow is said
to raise here 3700 worth of artichokes to every acre,
every year, and she owns fifty acres — and is still a widow!
Palo Alto — tall tree — twenty-three miles from the
Mission Santa Clara, is the home of the great Stamford
University, built on the site of the old homestead and
erected as a monument to Governor Stamford's only
child. "Henceforth the children of California shall be
my children," he is quoted as saying, and the resultant
memorial is as beautiful as the spirit which conceived it.
An endowment of thirty millions of dollars immediately
lifted it from the sphere of politics, as not requiring state
aid; exempting it even from the slightest dependence on
tuition fees and making possible that paternalism which
can shape the moral as well as the physical side of college
life, impracticable in most universities. Then a virgin
tract of eight thousand acres, without a building any-
where to dictate style or to be fitted by force into the
general scheme, it gave an opportunity for a perfectly
balanced plan. There are two quadrangles, one com-
pletely surrounding the other — an adaptation of the
Mission San Antonio — ^with open arches, long colonnades
and the red roofing of old Spanish days. The chapel,
called by many the most artistic church in the country,
has a facade of mosaic with much of the interior decorated
In the same manner. It is only exceeded in extent by

214 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

the famous Capello Real at Palermo.

As in Santa Clara where the name Palo Alto Is the
sole representative of the giant redwoods that once
lifted their branches two and three hundred feet high,
so St. Mathew's County — San Mateo — calls attention
to her once noble forest in the town of Redwood. It is
a busy little place of no pretense, quite unlike the city of
San Mateo, only three miles further along, which on a
banner of bunting stretched across the road boasts the
charms of its magnificent hotel. "The impressive mag-
nitude of the main lobby with oaken walls embellished
with hand-carved ornamentation."

But this is California, remember.

Soon comes Burlingame, the summer home of fash-
ionable San Francisco, the stage for the frolics of the
modern friars. That Is the Burlingame off the highway,
where the roads zig-zag and cris-cross at every angle,
leaving coy little houses tucked away in roadside corners
to give friendly greeting — though there are many big
ones planted on distant lawns in somewhat scornful
isolation — ^but big or little, all smothered in flowers with
so resultant a warmth of color that it draws the sting of
the scornful and makes more friendly the greeting of the
wayslder.

Quite different this from the Atlantic Coast, where
the country in summer Is sought by city dwellers In search
of coolness. Here the San Franciscans leave their city

.5ft-

IHK MISSION OF DALORF.S TO-DAY

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 215

In summer for the sake of the bright warm sunshine that
bathes the countryside. Only twenty miles of roadway,
without bump or jump, takes one well away from the
cold winds and the damp fogs that much of the summer
crawl In scarves among the hundred hills of the city of
Saint Francis.

A bustling city covers the spot where Ortega and his
comrades stood looking over an arid waste towards the
smiling waters of the bay beyond. It is a gay city of
airy inconsequence that now lies along the muddy
shallows.

But it is the home of the mission Dolores.

DOLORES

The Bay of San Francisco and the site upon which the
present city Is built were discovered in 1769 by Jose
Ortega, Sergeant of the Portola Expedition in search of
Monterey. Failing to find Monterey, as they supposed,
the explorers pushed further North, to the eventual dis-
covery of San Francisco. When on their return they
reported this "find" to Padre Junipero Serra, he, as a
faithful Franciscan, expressed unbounded joy, remember-
ing his conversation with the Don Galvez who had
planned the expedition of conquest. Galvez, it seems,
had arbitrarily assigned San Diego, Monterey and San
Buenaventura as names for missions, making no mention
of the founder of the Franciscan Order which controlled

216 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

the religious end of the enterprise. On Serra remonstra-
ting with Galvez he replied: "If Saint Francis desires a
mission, let him show us his harbor, and he shall have
one." Serra firmly believed that Saint Francis had taken
this literally and miraculously interposed to conceal
Monterey and lead the adventurers to San Francisco
in proof that he wished that mission. When notified,
Don Galvez also accepted the discovery as a miracle and
piously assented to a dedication to Saint Francis. This
dedication took place in October, 1776, with all the
ceremony possible. When the walls of the little brush-
wood chapel had been gaily dressed with flags and pen-
nants, the image of Saint Francis was borne in solemn
procession — a preparation of the hearts of the faithful
for the holy sacrifice of the mass. As the procession
moved in solemn step around the church plaza, the
priests chanting sacred hymns, sprinkled the people with
holy water, for the truly faithful seek to take part in the
mass with a conscience devoid of offense, and they are
sprinkled with the water sanctified by solemn benedic-
tion to symbolize the necessity of such internal purity.
On returning to the church the sacred image was placed
upon the altar and the foundation mass was sung, the
Saint being invoked as patron of the new mission to the
roar of the guns of the good ship "Golden Fleece" and
the fusilade of the soldier guard. The mission was
called San Francisco or Dolores. Properly it is the Mis-

THK MAIN AITAR OK MISSION DOLORES, SAN FRANCISCO

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 217

sion of San Francisco de Assisi at Dolores; for the name
Nuestra Senora de los Dolores — Our Lady of Sorrows —
was first given to the lagoon beside which the buildings
of the mission were erected, and they borrowed the name
of the creek which honored the sorrows of Mary.

Architecturally the church dedicated in 1782 sounds
quite a different note than any of the other missions,
showing distinctive features of both Moorish and Corin-
thian, as well as the so-called "mission" — the facade
being adorned with four massive pillars and an arched
doorway with four arches above, in which hang the
bells. To-day the wide-spreading eaves, the gentle
sloping roof crowned with a glistening cross is like some
exquisite picture carelessly thrown on the rubbish heap
of forgetfulness, but like the lotus of Japan, growing in
muddy, stagnant water, it symbolizes purity in the midst
of sin.

Vancouver tells us that on his first visit the roofs
were still of thatch, and the dwellings of the Indians were
only huts of willow, entwined with tv/igs and covered
with grass. These, he says, were infested with every
sort of filth; refuse food was left wherever it happened to
drop, and vermin flourished plentifully. When in time
these huts became absolutely uninhabitable, the Indians
merely set fire to them and erected others on the same
inexpensive plan.

Dolores was the one mission where sentiment alone

218 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

dictated the foundation, and, materially never prosperous,
as the soil was woefully poor, the decline after seculariza-
tion was even more rapid than usual. "If any one of
the old priests who is buried close to the grey walls could
suddenly rise from his narrow, damp grave and see the
change, he would wring his skeleton hands in dismay,"
so writes a San Franciscan in 1835. The church tried to
maintain its old place as the Spaniards were still in the
majority and too much attached to their religion not to
defend their sanctuary, with all the stubbornness of their
national character. But heretics and foreigners quar-
tered themselves in the old apartments of the priests,
while some of the mission buildings were occupied as a
brewery and tavern; others as dance halls and saloons
for gambling. Only a few stray Indians were to be seen,
and they loitered about the place, one-half the time In a
state of drunkenness, the other half basking in the sun,
only now and then when needing money to again get
befuddled would they bestir themselves to run errands
or do any other odd job. You see, their wants were few;
before the arrival of the missionaries with so-called civiliz-
ing influences, they were still less. In those free and easy
days, whenever the weather was raw, they merely
coated their bodies with black mud to protect them from
the cold, and as soon as It became warm and pleasant
again, just washed it oflF to enjoy their accustomed
nudity. Once on a very cold morning. Padre Danti

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 219

asked a perfectly naked Indian If he wasn't cold. The
Indian replied that he was not; but seeing a dubious
smile on the padre's face, inquired: "Is your face cold?"
"Why, no," replied the priest. "Well," retorted the
Indian, "I am all face."

Saint Francis, a man of really remarkable character,
was born in the little town of Assisi, Italy, in 1182, and
because of the fact that as a child he could speak the
language of France, was named Francis.

As might be expected of a youth of spirit and fortune
in those days, he lived a gay and riotous life until called
to the war which had broken out between his native town
and a neighboring city. There he was captured and kept
a prisoner in close confinement for over a year, and during
those awful hours of loneliness and solitude he brooded
over the immensity of his sins and the frightful abyss
between the life he had lived and the life he ought to
lead. Filled with remorse he solemnly swore that upon
his release he would forever renounce the world and live
only the life of mortification, then generally supposed to
be for the service of God. Unable to do things by halves,
he became terribly earnest in his religious enthusiasm
and by rigid fasting brought himself close to death's door.
Sleepless and incessant contemplation wrought his imagi-
nation into a frenzy, and before long he persuaded
himself that he saw visions and dreamed dreams. One

220 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

day, while praying in an old dilapidated church, he heard
a voice from the crucifix calling upon him to repair the
falling walls of Christ's house. He at once sold every-
thing he possessed, turning over the proceeds to the
priest, and offered himself as a common laborer until the
necessary repairs were completed.

Neither his father's threats, the gibes of his former
friends and companions, nor popular ridicule could turn
him from his purpose. The more he was opposed the
more firm he became in his determination to cast every-
thing aside and follow Christ. He accepted the life and
example of Christ as his most literal rule. He stripped
himself of his ordinary clothing and put on a cloak of the
coarsest material to be found, following the life of a
beggar and sleeping upon the ground with a block of
wood or a stone as his pillow. He ate his scanty food
with ashes strewn upon it and scourged himself cruelly.
In mid-winter rolling himself on the snow and ice to
extinguish the sensual fires within. He fasted and prayed
and preached; he shed tears so copiously as to become
almost blind, and in nearly every conceivable way he
cultivated what to others must have appeared the most
abject misery. But his enthusiasm Increased rather than
diminished and his ardor became rapture, his rapture
ecstasy. Finally he came to believe that he received
visits and communications from Christ, and the saints,
and so persistent and constant was his vision that

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 221
according to the legend, he was rewarded with the Impres-
sion of the stigmata. In other words, he was supposed
to be so entirely given up to piety and godliness and to
be so perfect in the imitation of Christ as even to bear
like Him the marks of the crucifix and passion.

A persistent life of this kind In whatever light It might
be looked upon in these days, could not fail in those to
attract attention and admiration. Was this not truly
the life of one who was laying up treasures in heaven in
doing all that was required by the Scriptures to Inherit
eternal life? Had he not sold all that he possessed,
given to the poor, taken up his cross and followed Christ?
Was there not every reason to believe him sincere, and
If sincere was it possible for anyone to pursue more
strictly, either according to the spirit of the letter, the
directions of Holy Writ? Believed to be sincere and
living In an age of faith, he could not fail to have fol-
lowers as well as admirers. Prominent men partaking
of his spirit desired to Imitate him and become his com-
panions. A rich merchant in whose house he had once
been a guest first led the way by selling all his estate,
distributing It among the poor and associating himself
in the devotions and labors of his friend. Another and
another followed the example thus set, and by degrees
the company increased into the commencement of a
great order. The new members as they came in adopted
the same dress that Francis wore: a robe of coarse grey

222 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

serge, tied about the waist with a hempen rope, later
called the Saint Francis Girdle, which tied about the
middle falls almost to the feet and is used as a lash of
discipline, for which purpose it has several large knots
towards the end, called "stings."

The beginning of this order dates from 1209 and its
progress was so rapid that ten years later it numbered
over 5,000 members. In less than fifty years after the
death of the founder it counted over 200,000 members,
with 8,000 monasteries and convents; and, as we have
seen, more than five hundred years later was sowing the
long road between San Diego and Sonoma with missions,
and building to the memory of St. Francis himself that
one work with which we have just dealt.

CHAPTER XX

ACROSS THE WATERS OF THE BAY TO THE HOSPITAL-
MISSION OF SAN RAFAEL

Father Junipero Serra on his first visit to Dolores
stood on the shore of the great waters, and gazing over the
wide expanse of the bay is said to have given thanks to
God that St. Francis with the holy cross of the procession
of missions had reached the last limit of the California
continent — "To go further," he added, "one must go
by boat."

And much of the way to San Rafael is by boat — across
San Francisco Bay to Contra Costa — the modern Oak-
land, a friendly sort of a city, so near to Berkeley that
their borders melt in together. Berkeley is the educa-
tional beacon light of the Pacific Coast, and was referred
to long ago by Bishop Berkeley, after whom the uni-
versity is named, in his prophetic line: "Westward the
course of empire takes its flight." Berkeley has a hilly
campus of nearly three hundred acres, giving a wonderful
view of the Golden Gate. Looking from her gentle hills,
writes the poet of the West, you behold a vista that is

223

224 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

surpassed only by the Golden Horn, Including the silvery
ripples of the great bay, and beyond them the gleam of
the mountains whose wall in some early epoch was
broken and hurled asunder to make way for the Golden
Gate, a gate that opens to the ocean and to romantic
mysteries of Asia.

In the hills surrounding Richmond, some six miles
further on, are many mortar-like depressions made for
grinding corn, evidencing the horde of Indians once
living here. At Richmond there is more water and
just across is the road which leads direct into San Rafael.

But perhaps you have chosen the water passage to
Sausalito, perched on tree-covered heights, where the
road runs through beautiful redwoods, and by the
romantic old saw mill which gives the valley its name.
Above Mill Valley towers Mount Tamalpais, of volcanic
origin. "The earth has bubbles just as water has, and
Tamalpais is one of them." It is a mountain of memor-
able figure, springing direct from the sea level, plumbing
the narrow entrance on the south where the loud music
of the Pacific sounds along the cliffs and among the dismal
shifting sand hills wrinkled by incessant winds. Tamal-
pais looks down upon San Francisco, and all approaching
ships are first sighted from its marine observatory. The
view from the summit spreads out the country below like
some topographical map, and only then does one truly
appreciate the size of the wonderful harbor of San

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 225
Francisco — the largest land-locked harbor in the world.

Between Sausalito and San Rafael is little of interest,
except the prison San Quentin, that living tomb of
thousands who have been lured into the easiest way. At
San Rafael itself there is absolutely nothing to remind one
of the old hospital mission except perhaps those memories
which, hke magic glasses, always reproduce the pictures
of the past.

A scourge of measles had laid heavy hand upon the
neophytes of San Francisco, and one of the compas-
sionate padres^ believing that a transfer across the bay,
away from the harsh ocean breezes, might "stem the
advancing tide of death," made so successful an experi-
ment that the Father Presidente agreed to found a hos-
pital mission. Of course, nothing could be done without
governmental co-operation, and as a matter of fact the
foundation was actually due to Don Vincente de Sola, the
last of the Spanish governors, who again used the mission
as a pioneer agency, wishing to extend still further north-
ward an additional check to the much feared Russian
settlers. A wide survey of the North was ordered — the
last expedition made in California under Spanish rule.
It was like the first Portola exploration in 1769, with
much the same objects and methods. They chose as the
site for the Mission San Rafael one of the most
picturesque, as well as healthful spots in all California.

225 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

"Looking southward, one saw, less than a mile distant,
a long, steep ridge densely covered with green foliage.
High over this, some five miles further, rose the deep
purplish-blue peak of Mount Tamalpais. To the right
the view was closed in by wooded hills, but to the left
it opened out miles of bay, with small islands in sight,
beyond which could dimly be seen the double-humped
summit of Mount Diablo."

Amid these glorious surroundings a mission was
dedicated to the yet unrepresented Archangel San Rafael.
The Archangel Rafael being chosen as patron saint In
order, as the records state, that the most glorious prince,
who in his name expresses the healing of God, might care
for bodies as well as for souls.

It was a somewhat composite building. Including
such apartments as might be needed for a sanatorium,
with no attempt made to beautify the place architec-
turally. The church, like most of those In Northern
California, never much to look at was decorated more or
less in a tawdry, unpleasant style often seen in the poorer
churches of Spain. Of course there were the usual
quarters for the workers as well as for the unmarried
men and women, and every evening one could see at
the door of the monjerio an old Indian woman who held
in her hand a list of names which she checked as the girls
one by one went In for the night. When all were

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 227

accounted for, the matron locked the door and took the
key to the Father, making her report.

At about eight or nine years of age all Indian girls
were brought to this nunnery, where they were carefully
reared in seclusion, being taught all womanly occupa-
tons. With them were the widows who it is said, at
the death of their husbands, always lamented this con-
finement, which was certain to follow, as much as they
mourned for the dear departed. Locked in at night, they
were released only at the sound of the bell for prayers,
then going first to church and after to break their fast at
the pozolera, where they remained until time to com-
mence the daily task. They were supposed to live in
this monjerio until married.

Picture, if you can, a low stone structure built around
a patio, with a huge fountain in the center. Here in
seclusion the Indian girls would bathe, gossip and work,
but despite the seclusion and the vigilance of the old
Indian matron, many a dark-eyed maiden arrests the
attention of some stalwart brave, who could always coax
the padre to intercede for him. But generally all the
unmarried neophytes would be summoned to church,
once in so often, and arranged along the wall — the women
on one side, the men on the other. Then would the
good padre ask the men, one by one, which of the women
opposite they chose to marry. If any selected a woman

228 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

showing an unwillingness to accept him, he had to
choose again. On asking the women, if several women
chose the same man, and he manifested no preference,
their names were thrown together in a hat and the man
drew one out. Even so, these marriages were as happy as
many of those in other lands under other laws, and
hundreds of contented homes grew up around the mission
walls.

One of California's oldest native sons, over the cup
that cheers, still reminisces about the good old days and
tells how at secularization the Mission San Rafael was
granted from out her once wide possessions only the little
plot of ground on which the sacred building stood.
Fremont took possession at the time of the bear-flag
revolution, and the buildings suffered cruelly under his
occupancy.

To-day not a vestige remains; except perhaps a few
old trees in the padre's orchard — that is all.

Mexico was in arms against Spain, and Don Pablo
Vincente de Sola, the last Spanish governor of the Cali-
fornians, was to be inaugurated with unusual ceremony
and rejoicing. Making ready for the great occasion,
broad covered corridors were built around the plaza.
Their pillars were decorated with festoons of evergreen,
while all the adjoining houses were ornamented in a
similar manner with flowers and boughs of pine. Mis-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 229

sionarles, commanding officers of the military posts and
all the important men of the colony were present, when
Governor Sola, accompanied by the officers of his staff,
amidst the roar of artillery walked to the church where
twenty priests assisted by sixty Indian musicians were in
waiting to chant the Te Deum. The troops, both military
and cavalry, were drawn up in front of the church which
was crowded with gente de razon of the presidio and
ranchos. Those that could not find entrance knelt in
the plaza or in the corridors.

The cavalry wore their sleeveless bullet-proof jackets
of buckskin, trousers of dark cloth and low-crowned hats.
On their left arms were rough shields made from bull-
hide and in their right hands ten-foot lances. They, too,
knelt during the ceremony, but sprang to their mettle-
some steeds the moment it was over and stood at atten-
tion while the governor, followed by a gorgeous procession,
marched to the flagstaff in the center of the plaza and
saluted the royal lion of Castille.

Immediately after, twenty young damsels came
forward, a dar el besamano a su senora on behalf of their
parents, tendering their felicitations to the Governor on
his accession to power. Then following the usage and
fashion of the time, they kissed the Governor's hand, and
history tells that the Governor liked it and would not
have objected to more.

By this time all were quite ready for luncheon, where

230 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

there were luscious oranges and pomegranates from the
mission at Obispo, enormous ripe olives from San Diego,
figs and preserved dates from Buenaventura, sweet
bread and cakes from the Mission of San Antonio, with
good red wine from San Fernando. So bountiful was the
supply that after the Governor and his party had finished,
orders had to be given to put up other tables and call in
the populace, about five hundred of whom were fed.

At nightfall the church as well as the houses and even
the trees were ablaze with light — ^little clay vessels con-
taining suet and wick, and the men and women, old and
young, romped and danced in the courtyard to the strum-
ming of the guitar.

The next day on horseback the Governor took the
road to Monterey, going through a dense forest of pine
where were placed many great crosses, significant of
Christ's suffering. But they had not gone far before a
band of choristers appeared, all wearing newly washed
robes, attended by many young Indians in the dress of
acolytes. They were closely followed by the padres
marching in two wings, merging on a center where was a
crude platform bearing a crucifix. Coming next were a
horde of "white-washed" savages to the number of two
thousand, each carrying a flowering branch in his hand.
The governor and his officers immediately dismounted,
and walked to the center where the crucifix was presented
by the Presidente of the mission. One by one they kissed

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 231

the feet of the effigy and then continued their journey to
the mission.

This was the last ceremony of the kind held in Cali-
fornia.

CHAPTER XXI

THROUGH ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS TO SOLANO THE

MISSION AND THE HOME OF THE BEAR-FLAG
REVOLUTION

On entering Sonoma County one may travel for miles
in a scenic setting not unlike that of the Champagne
District of France. Here are those long stretches of
green vineyards where was grown most of the fruit that
in the old happy days produced annually fifty million
gallons of wine in California.

The wine pressers, largely French and Italian, as is
always their habit, have transplanted to his new home
many of the picturesque customs of their native land, and
each year, when the grapes are bursting with "the blood
of October" Bacchus is feasted and in gala costume the
workers dance in procession through the ripening vine-
yards.

Leading the procession are the very old, wrinkled with
age, representing Winter. Coming after are boys and
girls clad in white, emblematic of youthful Springtime,
skipping their way to the music of 0 Printcmps belle

232

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 233
saison. Then maturing Summer placidly follows, full-
bosomed peasants, invoking the blessings of Mother
Earth. 0, noire mere eternelle et feconde Terre sacree
entends nos chants. Last in line is Autumn, crowned with
leaves, riotously forgetful of the sorrows and hardships
of coming winter. The women are dressed in dazzling
saffron, the men in imitation tiger-skins. All carry on
their shoulders baskets of grapes or pull with ropes of
vine rustic carts overflowing with fruit which they pitch
into the wine press to the chanting of the bacchanal:
0, Bacchus fais ruisseler le sang d'Octobre aux cuvees des
pressoir.

Then to the songs of the God of Wine is danced the
dance of Canephores. As if driven by a strong wind,
the dancers whirl round and round the basket bearer,
fluttering over their heads bits of cloth tinted to all the
shades of dead grape leaves — ^bright red to brown, yellow
to gray — circling closer and closer to the Goddess, they
at last fall at her feet, like dead leaves strewn on the
ground and the fruit is ready for the reaper.

The natives with contempt for all foreign ways stick
to alfalfa, and in this wonder land the "never quitter"
springs out of the irrigated fields six times every year, and
still the farmers grumble "Why, I thought," says one,
"when I had done the planting and got the water going
I would take it easy, but the durned stuflf grows so fast
it keeps me jumping to get it cut."

234 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

When Luther Burbank, prime minister of Ceres and
plant wizard, wished a rich soil and balmy air, where did
he go? Why, here! And with patient cunning year by
year he keeps wresting from Mother Earth her innermost
secrets.

Just as keen-sighted were the friars of the olden days
when they chose this for the home of the Mission Solano.

The last "bead" on the mission rosary Is Sonoma,
and with Sonoma have been strung twenty-one stations
of prayer. That mission came Into existence under a
cloud of wordy warfare between the religious and secular
authorities. Father Altlmira, an Inexperienced and con-
ceited young friar, to quote the records, believing him-
self wiser than his superiors, urged, and with the full
support of the Government, that a new Mission San
Francisco should be founded, intending to suppress the
old, being disgusted with the climate and future prospects
of Dolores. But It was that enterprising, Independent,
first Mexican governor who actually instigated Father
Altlmira to his blind insubordination. A man of great
Individuality and a keen student In his little world, Luis
Arguello carried his liberal ideas into every walk of life,
social as well as political. It was about this time that the
foreign waltz was Introduced, and quickly went both to
the feet and the heads of the entire countryside. The
Spanish el jota and contradanza were discarded as old-

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 235

fashioned, and the young senorltas night after night
whirled about like mad in the delicious excitement of
this new sensuous dance. Parents shuddered and priests
shouted, but to no avail. Finally the bishop issued an
edict threatening all with excommunication who waltzed
either in public or private, throwing the young people
into a panicy gloom, for they dreaded excommunication
with all their pious little souls. The very night this edict
came into force there was a dance, but no dancing, until
someone appealed to Luis Arguello, when he merely
shrugged his shoulders, saying that he was neither a
bishop nor an archbishop, and had no jurisdiction over
dancing, but if he knew how and felt like it, he would
certainly waltz as much as he pleased. In a moment
every couple in the room was again whirling and the mis-
sionaries had to give it up, as was the case in every con-
troversy they had with Arguello.

The Governor had long felt that further protection of
the northern frontier was badly needed, and realizing as
did all politicians that missions always served as a means
of defense, used the Jesuit Altimira as his religious tool,
though looking upon the enterprise as purely military, and
the proposed mission as a sort of outpost or barrier against
the Russians and the Americans, who were now beginning
to pour into the Far West. The American headquarters
was Sutters, strongly fortified and completely sur-
rounded by a four-foot adobe wall, fully eighteen feet

236 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

high. Sometimes it held as many as five hundred
American immigrants within its protecting walls. This
was the spot where the excited Marshall brought the
first grains of gold to the half-visionary Sutter, two
dreamers, who for a day and a night held in their hands
the destiny of the West.

Hence it came about that, In this Valley of the Moon —
the beautiful oak-covered vine-bearing valley of Sonoma,
so abundantly watered as to be called the fountainhead
of fountains. Father Altimira illegally raised the cross of
foundation on July 4, 1823. As the cross rose the soldiers
fired volley upon volley in salute, while the Christian
Indians sang hymns of praise and adoration. Several
lighted candles were placed at the foot of the cross and
one upon each arm. As soon as the cross was sprinkled
and perfumed with frankincense all knelt before it in
prayer, bowing their heads and saying: "0 crux ave spes
unica^^ — "Hail thou Cross, our only hope — ^behold the
wood of the cross on which the Saviour of the world was
extended. Let us come and adore."

Nine months later the church was dedicated with full
ceremony. Three crosses were hung on each wall and
over each cross was placed a candle; those twelve candles
representing the light of the gospel preached over the
world by the Twelve Apostles. The church was emptied
of all except one priest and the front door was locked.
Then other priests with the soldiers and neophytes

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 237
formed in procession, and with lighted torches made the
tour of the building, sprinkling the walls with holy
water. When they reached the front door on their
round, the officiating priest stopped and said: "Or^mwj,"
and all responded : ^^ Flectamus Genus^^ — "Let us kneel."
At once the priest went to the door, striking it three times
with his staff, that heaven, earth and hell might yield,
calling out: ^'' Attolite portas et introbit rex gloriae^^
The priest within responded, "Who is this King of Glory?"
"It is the Lord God Almighty; the God of Hosts!''
Then all cry out three times: "Open the door! Peace
be in this house!" To which the priest within replied:
"Then thou shalt enter," and opened the door. As
all went in, singing in a loud voice, they repeatedly crossed
themselves, effectually to confound the devil, as all devils
must vanish at the sign of the cross. Once in the middle
of the church the officiating priest knelt and began the
Veni Creator, taking ashes and scattering them in the
form of a St. Andrew's cross, crying out: "We beseech
thee to hear us, oh St. Francisco Solano!"

Though always known as the Mission of Sonoma, its
rightful title is San Francisco Solano of Sonoma, in honor
of San Francisco Solano who joined the Franciscan order
before he was twenty, being immediately sent to Peru,
where he was to act as an Inca missionary. A terrible
storm arose during his sailing voyage, and the vessel was
driven upon a rocky shore, when the captain begged

238 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

Francisco to come into the life-boat and be saved; but he
refused to leave certain pagan Indians who were aboard,
for whom there was no room in the tiny Hfe craft. As
the storm increased in violence and the mighty waves
washed the decks of the vessel which was fast breaking to
pieces, Francisco calmed the fears of the pagans, instruct-
ing and hurriedly baptizing them in preparation for death.
"For this he was canonized Indian Missionary, and so was
especially fitted to act as patron saint in California.

In the theory of law, a mission once having intro-
duced the faith among the heathen, ceased to function.
Designed for frontier work it was intended to be only tem-
porary, ten years being allowed each mission to accom-
plish its work, and at the end of that time it was to be
turned over to the established clergy. Solano had hardly
completed the ten years of existence allowed by the most
radical secularization measure, when that first secular
wedge, the Pueblo, was introduced by order of the
governor, bringing an administrator who publicly thanked
God that the Indians of the mission were at last to get
their rights. "From the bottom of my heart," he wrote
"I rejoice at the deliverance of these poor people from the
clutches of these missionaries," and in later communica-
tions he recited all that he had done toward that noble
end. He gathered the residents of the mission together
and told them they were free to go where they pleased and
make a living any way they could. At first he divided the

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 239
flocks among them, but finding that the result was bad
for their welfare, as it only involved them in quarrels,
he removed the cause of the quarrel by taking over the
cattle himself.

Secularization was followed at Solano by the dispersal
of the entire Indian population.

Some few years ago necessity outweighed sentiment,
and the bishop of the diocese sold the mission, using the
proceeds to build a modern church. It was resold to
W. R. Hearst, who generously deeded it to the State of
California to be kept for all times as a monument to
past glories.

At the dawn of 1845 California was In the full spot-
light of the play staged by the anti-slavery party of the
United States. They ardently desired California as an
offset to the recent acquisition of Texas for pro-slavery,
and had offered to buy, but Mexico had refused to sell.
Opportunely, Mexico made war when Texas declared her
independence. The Mexicans In revolution at home
could not care for California, and she also declared her
independence. But once detached she floated, as it were
in the air. Inviting somebody — anybody — to take her
out of the cold — a task much to the liking of both England
and France, who thought they saw their opportunity
when the American colonists, legally settled on the
Pacific Coast, were ordered out of the country without

240 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

compensation or redress. A company of Callfornlan
cavalry was raised to drive out the hated "gringoes"
by Pio Pico, the thirteenth Mexican governor, and, in
view of the superstitious, very properly the last.

America in recognizing the rights of its citizens to
protection could do no less than try and protect them.
This brought Fremont upon the scene, followed by Ide,
a tall, broad-shouldered frontiersman, who at the first
rumor that Americans were to be driven out of Cali-
fornia had gathered together a party of his friends.
He urged the taking of Sonoma, the headquarters of
Vallejo, the northern commandant-general. "Let's fly
to Sonoma, but not fly the country. While we have
arms let us fight." Then this "opera bouffe" war
commenced.

Sonoma was entered in the darkness of the night, and
the palacio of Guadelupe Mariano Vallejo, diagonally
opposite the Solano Mission, was quickly surrounded.
Three of the leaders left their companions and knocked
loudly at the barred front door. Soon the dignified
head of Vallejo appeared at an upper window, wanting
to know who dared disturb his august person at this
hour of the night. But on seeing the plaza filled with
men and being told that he was a prisoner, his fat chin
began to tremble and he hastily withdrew, appearing
somewhat later at the doorway with a suave invitation
to the three Americans to come within. A lavish supply

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 241

of wine and aguardiente was brought, in order, so said
Vallejo, to take off the shill of the cold-grey Cahfornia
night, and in no time at all the Americans became merry
and forgetful. After a long waiting, fearing disaster,
Ide forced himself into the house only to find one of his
lieutenants lying across the table, among empty glasses
and bottles, asleep. Another was fast nodding into the
same condition, while the third was valiantly trying to
master a near-collapse. Vallejo, the wily diplomat, had
be-deviled them and stolen away their good resolutions.
But Ide at once turned the tables, taking charge and pre-
paring articles of capitulation that announced the
establishment of a government on the principle of the
Republic of the United States. This he read to the
assembled crowd, and the Mexican flag was lowered.
But what should take its place? There happened to be
an American woman living at the mission who had come
to Sonoma for safety at the first signs of the outbreak.
The leaders went to her and asked if she had anything
from which a flag could be made. The good lady,
thinking for a moment, said " I have a piece of new cotton.
Will that do?" "A good beginning," replied the man
who had been selected as artist. So taking the cloth he
laid it on the table before him and sat down in deep study.
At last, turning to the others, he asked: "What shall the
picture be?" "A lone star," suggested one; "our
repubUc has only one State." But the others, when

242 CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS

asked their opinion, said "Put a star in one corner, if
you will, but put a grizizly bear in the center, for a bear
is no coward when his dander is up. He will fight and
never run away." Upon this they agreed, with the
addition of "California Republic" in capital letters.

And the little group toiled until midnight with linseed
oil and Venetian red, filling in the crude star and roughly
drawn bear. The capital letters were sketched in black
ink, and then a stripe of somebody's red flannel shirt was
basted along the bottom, so that there might be one stripe
for the one star.

All were up at dawn to raise the new flag to its point
of glory.

But a month later Commander Sloat pulled down the
bear-flag putting "Old Glory" in its place, and California
burst irom its crysalis form at Sonoma and flew into the
sisterhood of the United States.

a I

CALIFORNIAN TRAILS, INTIMATE GUIDE TO THE OLD MISSIONS 243

L'ENVOI

Thus have we seen how the dream of Junipero Serra,
tnat mission stations might dot the Hne from San Diego
to San Francisco, was more than reahzed.

But the Spanish Franciscans have all gone. And the
neophytes that gathered about the mission doors have
also disappeared — almost utterly as a race.

The Roman Catholic Church to be sure, is here — as
it is everywhere — but it holds to-day only a part of the
people, where in the old days it held all.

Still, do not look upon these missions "as spectres of
former glory, but rather as eloquent epitaphs of the deeds
of their founders," for though the bells be forever silent,
and the walls continue to crack and crumble, all that
remains deserves to be reverenced as representing manly
efforts dedicated to Christian religion.

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